Existence and Happenings at the AEC
by TheSymmetricalist
Summary: AU Maybe he wanted to fit in, maybe he just wanted to stop feeling like no one liked him, maybe trying to make friends with the only girl to ever sit down next to him wasn't the greatest idea he ever had, but maybe he could fix up this mess he just made and actually talk to her normally and not just stare at her the way he had been. And just maybe he wasn't as weird as she thought
1. The New Girl

**Hey everyone! I haven't updated in so long, I feel so neglectful. But on the bright side, I got a new fanfic started! Yay! It's a lot different from what I usually do (ALL of my fanfics up until this one have been Soul Eater based) but I think I can adjust myself to fit these new characters (I do Gorillaz roleplays with my friends a lot, part of the reason why I came up with this.)**

**Anyhow, enough rambling. The main inspiration for this, and the main reason why I've been gone for so long, is the fact that I've been working on getting my GED. It hasn't been _hard, _just requires a lot of patience (And a lot of not freaking out when strangers hit on you DX) and a LOT of not drawing on the table (I draw when I'm bored, just automatically, and I'll draw on anything and everything too. I might inculcate that into the story soon.)**

**But anyhow! On this one day in class I was really bored, and my legs were just wanting to run for some reason, I couldn't sit still. I kept thinking about random stuff and eventually thought of the beginning words to a new fanfic...**

**So I went home and came up with this!**

**I hope you enjoy it, it's completely Alternate Universe, everyone's basic personalities are still the same, but a few tweaks have been made here and there, for comedy reasons. I think you'll understand what I mean as we go along.**

**Anyway, here is chapter Uno!**

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

**The New Girl**

This was exhaustingly boring. He knew it was. And he knew it wasn't only he who thought so, because everyone in the room was plagued with this extremely bored looking expression, just like the one he had on right now. Here they all were, at least 14 of them, people, including himself, all sectioned off into stations of two computers per desk, all staring at glass monitors, all looking like zombies who haven't had a dosage of brains in four months.

The empty chair next to him, next to our protagonist here, was starting to annoy him. _Everyone _else had someone to sit by, someone to _relate _to, someone to pass little stupid notes to, someone to help out and receive help in return, someone who was here for the same reason they themselves were.

At least that's what he thought these double desks were for, for making friends, right?

He didn't really realize, or he didn't allow himself to realize, that everyone here pretty much hated each other, or at least simply put up with one another. The AEC wasn't an actual school, it wasn't a place these people would be spending a good amount of their life in, it wasn't a truly defining part of their future, the people they met here probably won't be people they'll remember as best friends forever. They were all here for one reason, to get their GED. Whether it's because some of them dropped out of school willingly, or weren't "smart enough" to finish school, or had a pretty rough time in their life and really didn't want to go back to school for a diploma. No matter what situation made them come here to get their GED, it didn't really matter, that's what they were here to get.

But in our little protagonist's mind, every single person here was a good friend to their desk mate. A few sat together constantly, he thought that they must be the _bestest _of friends, and others switched between different people day by day, he thought of them as the social butterflies, the ones with many friends.

But no one has ever, _ever _sat next to him. Not even once. He thought he'd never make a friend in this place.

Our little protagonist here had no one.

He reasoned that it might be because he was too smart, perhaps. He intimidated them, maybe. His mother always did tell him he was a smart kid. Never could it be said that he fell into the category of those not "smart enough" to finish school. The blond kid behind him, who was always playing on his phone when told not to, he believed _he _fell under the category of one not smart enough, because he never listened, so there was no way he could learn anything, right?

And the girl next to _him, _he believed she fell under that category too. Instead of paying attention, she just whispered to the boy. Constantly, she'd be talking to him, asking him questions about his life, his goals, why he's here, where he's planning on going. Often our protagonist listened in on these little conversations they had. He found out that the blond haired boy wants to join the army once he gets out of here, it's simply a need of his, a want,_ a dream. _Our protagonist took that almost offensively, not that it was bad to have a dream, but, why didn't _he_ have one? Why didn't our protagonist want to do something with his life after this? Was it just this, was it just get your GED and get out of here? Everyone here has some sort of dream of theirs. Even the tall, quiet girl who always sits at the very very back of the room has a dream, she wants to become a nurse someday. The boy who is sitting in front of our protagonist has said many times that he wants to become a veterinarian. The brunette over there at the very front of the room, _she _wants to own her own pencil designing company someday. The kid who is always sitting next to her, no matter where she sits, wants to become a freelance photographer. The older, tan skinned woman with the long black hair who today came in with a black eye, she wants to prove to her family that despite dropping out of high school and having a child at 16, she can get her GED and she _can _make a living doing something besides whatever she's doing now. And that guy over there with the glasses, he wants to become a teacher someday.

Our protagonist sighed, realizing that everyone here had made their dreams known in one way or another. He listened to them, even though they didn't really talk to him, he listened, on breaks, in the bathroom, as he was walking out of the building to go home for the day, _he listened _to what they told each other, and he discovered one by one that each person in this room with him had a dream, they had a specific want in life.

But he didn't.

Not only did he not have a dream, he didn't have a friend here either. Maybe you had to have a friend to have a dream, or a dream to have a friend, he didn't really know. But without one or the other, our protagonist felt like he really didn't have a purpose in life. Maybe that's why he ended up dropping out of school during his depression, maybe that's why he had depression to begin with.

He gave out another heavy sigh and shifted his eyes back to the computer screen, when suddenly, from the front of the class room, in came a young woman, with bangs covering her eyes completely. She walked to the front of the instructor's desk and turned her back to the class and bent over to sign her name in the attendance log. Our protagonist couldn't help but notice the extreme contrast between black and white in her symmetrically striped shirt, and was pretty much hypnotized by the perfect pattern. In fact, he was so engrossed in the design of her shirt, that he didn't even realize it was coming closer and closer towards his very eyes.

He shook his head and looked at her face, noting how she was taking in her surroundings to see if there was anywhere else to sit, she kind of didn't feel comfortable sitting next to the guy who just stared her down as she walked over here. She supposed that was the reason why everyone else seemed to have the same idea, as there truly were no other seats to take. She mumbled something in a foreign language, barely audible for our protagonist to hear as she put down a black bag underneath the chair and then sat down, trying to avoid eye contact with the man next to her, who was still glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

She unfolded a piece of paper that had some login information on it, and proceeded to type it into the computer so that she could begin her online class, just as the others were already doing.

There was a sudden silence, a sort of calm to the atmosphere as our protagonist tried thinking of what just happened. A good few minutes went by before his head perked up and he looked around the room.

Everyone has a _partner, a friend, _as he reasoned.

_Someone was finally sitting next to him._

_Someone was finally going to be his friend!_

He put the pieces together in his head, and he suddenly formed a big goofy grin as his heart leaped with joy at the thought of finally having a _friend, a partner, a study buddy, someone to fill the annoyingly empty chair beside him!_

He looked at her, staring accidentally, and started thinking about what their future friendship might be like.

Of course he'd first have to ask for her name, they'd have to start with small chat after finishing their own private sessions online, maybe someday he'll have a very hard quiz, and she'll end up with the same one, and they'll use some form of _tapping code _to tell each other the answers they did know, and they'd both ace the test and be friends forever and ever and...

"Stop staring at me." He heard a stern, feminine whisper come from the girl, his new desk partner, and he was immediately pulled from his dream world.

"Oh, uh, sorry..." He scratched his head and turned back to the computer screen, heating up with embarrassment at the fact that he was indeed unconsciously staring at the poor girl. She probably thought he was a creep by now.

To be honest, though, she looked too young to be here. He was 25, but she looked to be only 19 or 20. Surely not of drinking age yet. Unless she was really 82 and had some weird aging disorder where she got younger as she aged, like that Benjamin guy on the movie...

But anyhow, she seemed friendly, for the most part. Well, like, she did at least _sit _next to him and not just go to the teacher and ask to be relocated to a different room like the other girl did. Tina, he thought her name was. Yeah, she did that.

But this girl sat next to him, and she was staying. And she looked kinda cute too, her chin and cheeks did at last, as he couldn't see anything higher than her nose...

Oh crap, he was staring again.

Out of the corner of his eye, but still, what if she-

"I said Stop. Staring. At. Me." She seemed to verbally capitalize each word as it rolled off her tongue. Our protagonist cringed and switched his attention back to his work. He noted that despite her starting _long _after he did, she was already on the same chapter as him. Now how did that happen? Magic? Was she a time travler? A time lord? Gasp! … Was she the Doctor?!

Quite suddenly, our protagonist was face to face with the most gorgeous set of green eyes he had ever come across, and Asian ones at that. Wait, she was Asain?

But more importantly, she was right up in his face, and she looked angry.

"What part of "Stop staring at me" do you not understand?" She angrily whispered. He concluded that he must have been staring _again_.

"Uh, well, I uh..."

"Stuart! What part of not talking during testing have you not figured out yet!?" The instructor shouted from her desk. Our poor protagonist felt like he was getting the heat from two angles now. Meanwhile, the girl who had no less then two seconds ago been up in his face with fury, was now facing the computer, somehow already on the next chapter of testing material. How on earth was she so fast?

Our protagonist whispered a short apology to Mrs. Robinson, the instructor, and went back to his testing page, figuring he'd think more about making friends with the cute little stripy girl after they were both finished. He avoided looking at her too much after that incident, but she was too darn adorable to simply resist altogether. Every now and then he caught a glimpse of her little green eyes glancing back at him menacingly, and he'd quickly correct himself and go back to his work. He had soon become somewhat of an eye ninja, successfully catching the quickest glances without making too much of a scene. At least, _he _felt he didn't make a scene, but the fact that he was trying so hard to look at her was probably as obvious as an elephant having walked into the room.

Before he knew it, though, the girl had already finished the last chapter and was getting up to leave. Stuart hadn't even finished the chapter he was on when she walked in an hour ago.

"Wait!" He quickly logged out of his assignment, he figured he'd finish it from home later, and jumped up to meet her face to face, although he did have to keep himself somewhat bent over to see directly into her eyes, er, bangs, as she was much shorter than he was.

"Yes?" She asked in a rather ticked off tone.

"Um, wha' migh' yor name be?" He asked, hints of a Cockney accent dripping off his tongue. The girl rolled her eyes, invisible to everyone but herself, and whispered, "Xia." before turning on her heels and heading over to the desk to sign out. He followed her, and signed out right after her, quickly copying her time onto his so he didn't waste a second looking at a clock. For whatever reason, something made her actually stop in the hallway and keep the door open for him, and when he came out, he mumbled a short "Thank you." before turning to face her and waiting as the door closed before saying anymore bold words, or what was bold for him since this was the first time he ever talked to a_nyone _here who wasn't an instructor or principal or something.

"Um, well I'm-"

"I know who you are, Stuart. Why were you staring at me during testing? It was very distracting. You almost made me fail test 4 and I missed 3 out of 10 questions on test 5."

"Uh, I'm sorry luv, I didn' men teh-"

"Save your "Sorrys" for the instructor, because I don't work like that. I came here, not to socialize, not to make friends, not even to speak a word unless I absolutely have to, but to get my GED and get out of here. Understand?" At this point she had her index finger to his chest, and she was poking him hard, but the green glasses clad lad was too caught up in the fact that his little friend was actually talking to him to even care that it was negative what she was talking about.

"Hey, 2D Boy, snap out of it and answer me!" She snapped her fingers in front of the man, who still wasn't answering whether or not he understood what she had told him five seconds ago.

"I'm sorry, repea' teh question luv? I was, uh... Wai' wha' do yew mean by 2D Boy?"

"Repeat? Seriously? You heard nothing I just said?" She sighed and leaned away from him, returning her hand to her side so it was no longer in the position it was when she was poking at him. She mumbled something, again in a foreign tongue, and walked away swiftly, totally ignoring the boy who just now decided that _maybe _he shouldn't head in that same direction just yet.

Maybe he'd wait for tomorrow before he tried chatting her up again.

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><p><strong>So, was it enjoyable, or horrible?<strong>

**R&R, pleasies :)**

**I remember a while back having a book that told you how to write in different accents. I don't really remember how to do the Cockney accent, but through reading other fanfics I just adopted what I learned and tried using it here with 2D.**

**And no, I'm not changing Noodles name to Xia.**

**If I could avoid a flame, I would, but constructive criticism in itself is lovely! You know what's even better? Cookies! But the internet has yet to give us the ability to give actual cookies through the computer screen, (Get with it, Google! By next year I wanna see Google Cookies!) but if I could, you know I'd totally give all my readers cookies!**

**And not just to bribe them either ;)**

**Until next update!**

**-The Symmetricalist **


	2. Spoken Music

**I'm back! I honestly didn't think I'd get any further than the first chapter on this thing, as seeing that it's probably not a very interesting story in general (I'm gonna MAKE it interesting, alright?) but I got some interesting inspiration last night and decided to flow with it.**

**It's already deviating from what I originally wanted it to become, but hey, it also seems to be heading in a more interesting direction than before as well.**

**Enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

**Spoken Music**

A day later, and pretty much the same routine repeated itself. Stuart sat all alone at his desk, finishing up his test that he didn't complete. Really, after going home yesterday, all he did was watch a bit of TV, read a few comic books, and then went to bed. He vaguely remembers having a strange dream where an alternate version of himself was singing alongside a sadistic bassist who was desperately attempting to murder him with a toilet paper roll and a box full of string cheese, but he related it to yet another late night eating binge and didn't think too hard on it. The song he was singing during the dream, though, seemed to have a lot of meaning, so much that he even wrote down a few of the lyrics to try and find out whether or not it was a real song.

But, unfortunately, he spent too much time this morning trying to write down nonsensical song lyrics and ended up being 30 minutes late to the class room.

But that didn't matter so much since Xia wasn't here yet anyways.

The bored young man gave out a yawn and caught a glimpse of a man a little older than him, with jet black hair formed into a Beatle cut, who was sitting alone in the far right chair across from Stuart. He had seen this guy before, yes, but only for a moment or so. He typically sat there along with a young girl, blue eyes, brown hair, really cute little thing, and he wasn't ever, _ever _without that girl by his side for too long. They didn't seem to be romantic at all, the two barely even talked, but she just always sat next to him, almost like a moth to candlelight. And on the rare occasion that she arrived to the room before him, he made note of it to sit next to her when he did come in.

But today, he was alone. It had been a while, and the girl was nowhere to be seen. Stuart found it rather odd, to be honest.

On top of the girl being gone, the man seemed rather tense today. His leg was shaking ferociously as he stared at the screen in front of him, hunched over and leaning on the desk as a small golden Peace Sign hung in midair, suspended by a golden chain that found itself at home around his strong neck.

Suddenly, in walked, not the girl, but Xia. The man across the way from Stuart seemed almost disappointed at that fact., as his leg had actually completely paused its shaking once he heard the door open up. The moment he saw that it wasn't his friend, though, he went back to shaking his leg and concentrating upon the screen.

Stu found it very cute that the man would have such a strong connection to the girl that simply the thought of her walking in would make him calm down completely.

He decided he'd eventually share this finding with _his_ friend.

"Ello, Saya! 'Ow are yew dis-"

"Shhh!" Mrs. Robinson hushed the loud, tall man from her seat behind the desk. Stuart lowered his voice to continue with his morning greeting, ignoring the fact that "Shhh" meant he really shouldn't be talking at all.

"Uh, 'ow are yew dis mornin', Saya?"

"Xia, not Saya." Was all she said as she logged in to her work page and began reading up for her next set of tests. Stuart, instead of reading along with her as he should have been, was instead peeking over Xia's head to see the man. He was still shaking up a storm, not even putting his hand to his mouse to switch over from whatever he was reading, surely he was done with that page by now, right?

Finally, the girl walked in, and the guy perked up the moment he saw her. Stuart sighed, maybe someday that'd be him and his little love Xia someday.

Around 10 minutes after the girl had sat down, Stu noticed that the man was now clicking his mouse to move along in the lesson, a click or so sounded each few minutes.

Stuart was soon interrupted by Xia giving a small, sarcastic giggle.

"I knew that's what she was there for." She mumbled inaudibly.

"Wot do ya mean?" Stuart whispered back.

"He's using her to cheat."

"'Ow tho'?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Why won't yew tell m-"

"SHHH!" Mrs. Robinson was fuming at the poor boy, so he decided to just be quiet until they were both finished for today.

Another hour went by, and then another, and Stuart was surprised that Xia was still there next to him. He expected that she would have left by now, as she did before, but she was still sitting there, reading the chapters at a more normal pace than she did yesterday.

Granted, she was still far ahead of him, but it was nice for him that she was slowing down, even if she wasn't doing so for his benefit.

Minute turned to hour, and hour became hours, and soon it had reached 240 minutes that they had been there. Four hours in almost uninterrupted silence. Sure, everyone took a break every half hour or so, whether to go outside and smoke or to go into the hallway and talk, this wasn't school so as long as their work got done eventually whatever they did in-between was their business. But for Xia, it didn't seem like she needed, nor wanted, a break. She was entirely focused on her work, and because of the fact that she never took a break, neither did Stu.

Before meeting the girl, he'd take short breaks outside to smoke a cigarette or mess around on his smart phone every time he felt the need to, but now he felt the need to stick by her for that one little moment where maybe, just maybe, she'd need his help with something, and it'd become an excuse to talk to her.

For now, that moment hadn't happened, but he was sure of himself that it would eventually happen, if he just stayed here and didn't get up, not even for a cigarette or a quick yet frustrating round of _Cloppy Horse._

And then rather abruptly, she rose up from her seat, grabbed her little black bag from under the chair, and headed towards the desk to sign out.

He didn't even see her close out her testing screen! And yet she was already near the door, shooting him a quick glance as she opened it and removed herself from the room. He quickly followed in her pattern so as to catch up to her, hoping to finally find out what she meant during that whole conversation they had earlier in the morning.

But after he finished signing out and made his way out the door, he didn't see her, at all. He headed down the hallway and descended the stairs, his long legs moving as quick as they could without sending him tumbling down the concrete steps, and ended up at the end right next to the exit without any major injuries, much unlike the last time he went down a staircase that fast.

He placed his lanky hand upon the metal push bar and with a little strength, pushed it open to invite a cool breeze to come upon his skin from the sweet September air. He forced his body to move fully outside, mentally noting to himself that he really should start wearing his jacket, and then he looked left and right to try and find the girl he had, for some reason, come to know as his friend. He saw her small figure off in the distance to the right of him, getting further and further away as she headed towards a fence that came around the border of the AEC property.

Without too much thought on what he should do right then and there, he decided to follow, not too closely so that he'd have to run to catch up to her, but just enough so he could see exactly where she was _going._

He saw her jump up over the fence, and then continue on into the forest beyond the fence, almost disappearing instantly into the brush. Stuart was entirely confused at this point, why was she going into a forest? Maybe her home was right beside the woods? He wasn't really sure, but he did know that if he didn't speed up at least a little, he'd lose her.

Once he was sure she was out of earshot of hearing him running towards her, he picked up his pace and made it to the fence rather quickly. He jumped over it without a lot of difficulty, although he did end up falling flat on his face and getting a few cuts in the process.

After taking a few little stickers off of his face and fingers, he raised himself up and brushed the dirt from his pants. He looked around, curious as to which direction she went, and scratched his head, realizing that maybe following a girl he's only known two days into a forest was probably not the best idea he ever had. And now, despite being two feet from the AEC parking lot, he felt lost.

But suddenly, he heard music. Guitar strumming, to be exact. It seemed to be coming from his left, but it was quite faint, so he knew he'd have to walk a little way before finding the source. Wait, was that Xia playing? Maybe, he wasn't really sure yet.

He followed the pretty, strumming sound of the guitar and got a little excited as it kept getting louder, because that meant he was going in the right direction, and even if he did get lost while looking for the girl, at least he'd find _her_, and if they couldn't find their way back together, then at least they could repopulate the earth together. Wait, what?

Ah! There she was. He saw her in a small, round clearing, leaning up against a big tree as she held her guitar close and strum away with her tiny, feminine fingers. She seemed so engrossed in the music she was creating, she didn't even notice the tall, slender, blue haired man who was peeking at her from behind a tree a few feet away from her. He stared at her intensely, but it was a different type of stare from the one he did in the class room. This stare was, not one of infatuation or unconsciously not_ realizing _that he was staring, but out of admiration. Yeah, he knew of a lot of people who could play guitar, he admittedly even took a try at it once or twice, despite not being very good, but this girl here did it differently, she seemed to not simply play the guitar, but she was _one _with the guitar. She didn't tell the guitar what to play, the guitar spoke to her and told her how to play it, how to make the strings speak for it. Almost like a secretary, really. And she was the most beautiful guitar secretary Stuart had ever seen.

Things went on like that for about 15 minutes, and not once did she see him standing there. Eventually she got up, put the guitar under a black tarp that seemed to just appear there, grabbed her little black purse, and left the area, heading behind the tree she was leaning on and continuing onward. Stu decided that he had enough of being a creepy stalker for the day, and instead of following her more, he let her be and went back to the parking lot to get in his car and go home.

The next day seemed to go the same. He and Xia didn't really talk, and she still didn't tell him what she meant about the guy using the girl he always sat with to "cheat", but he did make note that the guy never seemed to start doing any actual work until the girl walked in. He also noted how the girl would often lean over and point at certain things on his screen. Maybe he _was _using her to cheat.

The same scene ensued after testing ended as well. Stuart followed Xia out of the building, over the fence, and then he stood and watched her as she played her guitar for 15 minutes against the same tree. He didn't feel any braver today than he did yesterday, so he still didn't bother talking to her or even following her any further than he had before. So he went back, repeating the same pattern like this over again for yet another day.

Today, though, he felt as though there was a different texture to the feeling between them. She seemed upset, over what exactly he wasn't sure, he knew nothing more than her first name and that she played guitar very well, but she surely did seem upset.

She always _seemed_ emotionless to him, so of course even the slightest sight of feeling on her face was a miracle to him, as well as a cause for alarm since it was a negative emotion she seemed to be feeling.

After she signed out and he continued in his routine of following her out to the clearing in the forest to watch her play, however, he noticed that she wasn't playing. In fact, her guitar wasn't even near her. There didn't seem to be anything under the tarp either. Did something happen to it?

But even more importantly, she was leaning against the tree, as she usually did, with tears falling from her face. The poor girl, she was crying!

But he didn't know what to do, he didn't know what to do at all. He knew that the right thing to do would be to go over and console her, figure out what was wrong and what he could do to help, but she didn't really seem like the type of girl who would like that, she was a little more of an independent soul, and Stu sure as heck knew that he didn't even know _how _to do that in the first place.

So instead, he just looked on in silence, his heart aching at the scene of the young girl, who, after lifting up the tarp where she usually kept her guitar, broke into even more tears after revealing that it was completely, utterly, destroyed.

Now Stuart was just confused. Why would she keep her guitar outside to begin with, and two, who would destroy her guitar?

He hoped she didn't think he did it.

Then again, she didn't seem to know that he had been watching her these past few days, so he felt safe.

Xia cried for a little while longer before she got up, grabbed her little black purse, and headed in the same direction she did every day.

Only this time, instead of going back to the parking lot after she left, he instead walked over to the tarp with the broken guitar under it, and inspected the broken pieces.

It was completely unrepairable, the only things left were shards of broken wood and dismembered guitar strings. You could barely even tell that it was once a guitar.

However, Stu did notice two letters on one shard of wood, so he picked it up to investigate it further. The letters, which looked like they had been messily burned into the guitar at one point, read "No."

No? Who would write "No" on their guitar?

But then he found another piece with yet another "O" on it, and one more piece with the letters "DLE" on it. He realized that all these pieces were connected at one point, so after a little puzzle solving, he finally got them to fit together the way that they were.

And now, they formed the word "Noodle".

Now who the heck would burn the word "Noodle" on a guitar?

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><p><strong>After this, I got pretty into it, and already I'm almost done with chapter 3.<strong>

**I kinda see where it's going, but I'd be lying if I said I know how it will end. There is s_o much _I want to do with this and I hope any readers I gain (You guys rock btw) will stick with me on this journey through weirdness!**

**For some of you who may not know about the whole process of getting a GED (Many of my friends have no clue, so I'm not trying to be critical or something) basically when you first go in to get it, they'll put you through four pre-pre tests to see what grade level you're at for each subject, after this (Which will typically take two days as each test is around 47 minutes long) they'll bring you into an orientation room, where you will go over test scores and receive motivation (I did at least) to do your best. Once in orientation you'll be taking more tests, these ones typically involve jobs and mimic situations that you'd run into in a job (Our instructor once gave us a test with questions such as "If you could be an animal what animal would you be and why?" and "Who is your favorite cartoon character?" then he explained the interesting reason _why _he gave us that test. I'll explain it in a later chapter). These tests can be done from home but you are required to spend at least 14-20 hours in the actual orientation class room over a course of two weeks. After _that,_ you take the GED pre-test (My scores were high on the initial pre-pre-test so they had me and some other kids go ahead and take the pre-test already) If you score high, (I wasn't expecting it so I flipped out and got a low score) they have you go and take the regular test and if you pass you can get out of there, but if you score low on a few subjects, then they put you in classes to help you on only those specific subjects. This is from my personal experience with the whole GED process and it's probably different depending on your state, so don't by any means take my word for it. I just thought a little explanation might help you get an idea of where my mind is at while I'm writing this.**

**The beginning chapters of this fanfic are based in the initial orientation, where they'll probably be for another week.**


	3. Angel in Disguise

**Hey, everyone! So, it's Saturday, and I really love Saturday. And one of the things I love doing on Saturday is writing. So, here I am, with the third chapter for EaHatA! **

**Told you I almost had it done ;)**

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><p><strong>Chapter 3:<strong>

**Angel in Disguise**

Stuart decided that the number one way to be a friend to little Xia would be to give her back what she had lost. He didn't know why her guitar was destroyed, he didn't know why she kept it outside in that clearing, and he didn't know why she played it all the time, but he did know that from the look on her face earlier, she'd probably really appreciate it if she had it back. But since the guitar was in no condition to ever be repaired, he'd have to find a way to get her a new one.

But simply getting a new one wouldn't do. She obviously had a connection to that guitar specifically, she even burned her favorite food into the side of it. You don't simply write your favorite food onto something you don't love dearly.

So, in hopes of finding an identical replacement, he took the three pieces of the guitar with the burnt in letters on them, and set off to the local thrift shop to find a guitar that looked like the old one. And after an entire day of shopping around for the perfect guitar, he finally found one that looked almost identical to hers, only it was a little darker of a color than the other. He decided it would have to do, it was still a beautiful guitar, he even bought a nice guitar case to go along with it, and on the way home, he also picked up a little wood burning kit.

He spent at least three hours, yes three hours, painstakingly copying the exact font from the pieces he had into the guitar he had bought. He wanted it to look identical to hers, in every way possible. Of course, in order for the time spent on his little project to be able to amount the three hours, he took a break after every letter to play a round of _Cloppy Horse _on his phone. Damn that tempting little pixelized pony.

Once he was sure that it would do, he set the guitar down by the door so that he'd remember it tomorrow when he left.

His tired eyes shut hard the moment he hit his bed, and right before he drifted off into sleep, he smiled, because he felt like he really did something _good _today.

The next day, he woke up bright and early, and felt amazing, like he had slept a million hours and finally felt fully refreshed. Then he looked at the clock and realized he had _overslept _and it was already 2:00PM.

He let out a curse and fell back into the bed, feeling awful, like he just wasted the entire day sleeping. Granted, orientation classes don't end until 5:00, so he still had the chance to get in there and get at least a few hours in, but Xia always left at 12:00 or 1:00, so no matter what, he already missed her.

He decided to get up anyway, hours were important, and he had to get as many as possible in that room. He got dressed, ate a quick meal, and went out the door, bringing the guitar with him so he could at the very least place it by that tree before tomorrow.

But then he realized tomorrow was Saturday.

Neither of them would be there tomorrow.

Dangit.

Either way, he put the guitar in the car and headed for the AEC, and much to his surprise, when he got there and pulled in to the parking lot, there was Xia, sitting down by the fence she jumped over each day.

Upon seeing her, he seemed to have totally forgotten about class, and instead decided to head towards her, making each step slower than he usually walked so he could gradually figure out from a distance what she was doing over here instead of being back at home like normal. She did have a home, didn't she?

Once he was around 10 feet away, she looked up at him and seemed almost startled, like she really didn't notice him coming towards her. She rubbed at her eyes and stood up, her little black bag hanging off her shoulder loosely and her head leaning towards the ground as she tried to avoid too much eye contact with him.

"Ey, yew alrigh'?"

"I'm fine. I just wanted to know why you didn't come in today, it was odd." Wait, did she really care about why he wasn't in today?

"Oh, slept late, dang alarm clock didn' wake meh up."

"Good, just making sure you weren't dead." She seriously thought he was dead?

"Oh, well tha' was nice of yew, luv." There seemed to be an awkward silence between them at that point, if all she wanted to do was make sure he was okay, then why was she still here?

"Aren't you going to go to class now?"

"Well, I'm makin' sure yewr alrigh', yew know? Yew're typically gone by now, luv. Yew didn' really 'ang aroun' jus' the see if a bloke lioke me was still alive, did yew?"

"So what if I did?" She turned red, not so much as with embarrassment, but with anger. But perhaps the anger was just there to hide the embarrassment.

"'Ey now, lil luv, it jus' seems like theirs somefink more, maybe, idunno, bu' I wanna know if I kin 'elp yew out wit' anyfink."

"Don't be so nosy with my life."

"I'm no' tryin' to be nosy, luv. I jus' wanna know, are yew alrigh'?" She walked right up to him so that they were literally toe to toe. She lifted her heels as high as they'd go so that she was as close to his face as possible, then she placed a hand on his shoulder, and used her other hand to pull up her bangs to reveal a black bruise under her left eye.

And with a stern voice, she whispered to him, "I'm fine." before switching back to her original position, holding her little black purse closer to her side, and walking away from him, going towards the parking lot.

That's not the way she went home, she always went through the forest. Maybe there was another way to get to her house, or maybe she just didn't want him seeing where she went to go home. Either way, he decided to go back to his car, grab the guitar which was in the guitar case, and go into the clearing where she always was and leave it by the tree.

As he placed down the big black leather object against the trunk of the tree, he swore that he heard a faint cry coming from the distance. It was getting closer and closer, just as he remembered walking through the forest and hearing the guitar strumming get louder and louder as he got nearer to the source. And same as last time, the sound he was hearing was most certainly from Xia.

Before the crying got too close, he jumped over to the tree that he usually hid behind while watching her play, and decided to wait and see if she noticed the guitar, and if so, what she thought about it.

He saw her come through the brush, her face red from tears and her knees shaking as she leaned down against the tree and covered her face in her hands, entirely ignoring the guitar case that was right next to her on the other side of the tree.

The guitar case fell from the place it was leaning on onto the ground below, giving out a startling _thunk _which snapped the girl out of her tears and into a state of confusion as she saw the object laying there by her.

She looked up, perhaps to see if there were any hidden cameras that would capture the moment when she opened the case and got hit in the face with a pie for laughs, but she soon allowed her paranoid side to perish and she took another look at the case before opening it up to reveal a beautiful brown acoustic guitar, with "Noodle" written on the bottom, in the exact way her other one had. She covered her mouth, and looked around again, wondering who in the world left this here. For a split second she thought maybe an angel had taken pity on her and left this as a sign for her to keep playing music, because maybe, just maybe, that angel _knew _that music was her only escape from this horrible, horrible existence she had come to know as life.

And maybe she was right, because as she picked up the guitar and began to play it the way she had with the old one, that angel, _her _angel, was smiling at her, not from a cloud in the sky as most angels would, but from behind a tree a few feet away from her.

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><p><strong>I know I've only written three, but this is my favorite so far :)<strong>

**I feel like it reads a little too fast, it is much shorter than the other two, but I also feel like it gets the job done, so I like that.**

**R&R, and stay tuned for another chapter!**


	4. The Beatle Brother

**Hey everyone! Sorry I took a while to get back on this, (I should be apologizing about my other fics that have gone nearly abandoned but oh well. I'll get to em when I get inspiration again) truth be told it's been nearly complete for a week now but I've been so busy with school that I've gotten lazy with my writing and didn't want to go proofread it.**

**But now it's here, with a new character to be introduced (Yay!) I was honestly nervous that I might, idunno, get people mad with certain things I did to him, but others have done way worse, and this is AU so I can do what I want.**

**Enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Chapter 4:<strong>

**The Beatle Brother**

The girl continued to play her new guitar much longer than she usually did. Never did she even look up to notice to blue haired boy looking on at her, a giant, happy grin on his face as he watched her sobs fade away into the music she was creating. For a while, he thought of a few words he could add to the song, she was consistent with her tunes, so it'd be easy to come up with a few lyrics here and there every now and then. But if she heard someone else singing along, then she might get frightened and stop playing, thinking she was being stalked. So for now, Stuart kept his song to himself, as did she, and they both continued on for at least an hour, her playing her new strings, and him listening to the gentle rhythm.

After a while, Xia stopped playing, and placed the guitar back in its case, then placed the case under the tarp and hid it inside a nearby bush. She grabbed her little black bag, and almost started walking away, when she slowly turned around and stared at the exact tree Stu had been hiding behind. It didn't really seem like a knowing stare, more or less it was a stare of curiosity, of who could be so generous to her, and had they still been in the area after leaving the guitar, did they take her playing it as a thank you to them?

Stuart was contemplating coming out of hiding and admitting that he left the guitar for her, but then again, maybe it'd be better to just leave it be.

Then again, if he didn't say something now, he'd have to wait an entire weekend to see her again. He at the very least wanted her number or _something, _he couldn't just let her leave right now! Maybe he could just pretend that he heard her playing and decided to come over, he didn't have to tell her it was he who bought her the guitar-

"I don't know who you are or why you decided to do something so nice for me. But if you hear me, thank you." She spoke before walking away, slowly but surely. He was missing his chance, couldn't he say something to catch her attention? Could he ask about her bruise? Maybe it'd be rude to talk about her bruise, she could have just fell or hit her face on a door or got smacked with a baseball, it couldn't have been too serious.

But as he was over thinking what he should do, he missed his chance, and she left him alone.

He realized that it was too late, so he went back to his car with a sorrowful face, to go home and spend an entire weekend upset that he didn't stop her from leaving so soon.

He trudged through the parking lot, wallowing in self pity and filled with "What if" questions that he'd never really get the answer to. What if he stopped her? What if he told her that he had been watching her for the past few days and he really loved her music, and what if he told her that he didn't want her to stop playing because it seemed to make her happy, so when he saw her guitar broken, he decided to get her a new one, so she could keep playing? What if he told her that even though he knew he came off as creepy when they first met, that he really wanted to get to know her better because he really liked her and wanted them to be friends?

Stu sighed and opened up the door to his little silver Cavalier, plopping himself inside and putting the key in the ignition, still plagued with sad thoughts that were immediately halted the moment he realized his car wasn't starting.

"No! Nononononono! T'is can' be 'appening, what am I going to do? 'Ow will I ge' 'ome? Me cellphone is dead! I can' call a tow truck or-"

"Quit wailing, you loudmouth!" A sudden, deep, rough voice was heard above Stuart's overreacting fit, and the young man looked up to see a tan man in a black sweater walking closer and closer to his car.

"Oh great! Now I'm gonna ge' mugged by a Beatle brother!"

"Wha' the hell, wha' is a beetle brother?"

"I don' know but you look like one! Here, take my walle', just don' shoot me!" Stuart practically threw the leather object at the man, who more or less just continued to stare at him like he was a side show attraction.

"Listen, I don' wanna take yor money. I wante' to see wha' was wrong, I coul' see your car wouldn' start and was wondering if you needed a jump." The man had a British accent, which was a bit of a coincidence to Stuart. Then again, he didn't really care about coincidences at this moment, he just wanted to get the heck away.

"Please don' jump me!"

"Your car, moron!"

"Oh, you want the Cavvy? Bu', why? She won' even run, yew said it yewrself." The man slapped his face and gave an overly exaggerated sigh.

"I wan' to help you get your car running so you can go back home, alrigh'? I don' wan' to jump you, or kill you, or rob you."

"Oh... Tha's a relief."

"Do you wan' help or not?"

"No... I mean, yes. Please 'elp."

"Alrigh', I'll bring my car around and git you started back up in no time." The man walked away and Stu settled down. He suddenly recognized the man as the one who always sat next to that one girl, the girl Xia told him was helping the guy to cheat on his tests. But, he seemed like a nice man, why would he take advantage of a little girl like that just so he could get a higher score? And wouldn't the teacher have noticed that by now if it were the case?

Suddenly, a black, beaten up 1990 VW GTI rolled over to the stagnant Cavalier, surprising Stuart for some reason. It was an odd little car, and he simply didn't expect this near intimidating man to be driving something so, cute.

The man got out of his car after parking it close to Stuart's, and came over to the hood of the Cavalier.

"Pop the hood." He asked, one hand on the silver metal as he leaned the other upon his hip.

"Wha'?"

"Pop the hood of your car."

"Why?" The man gave him a look of utter disbelief as his jaw dropped, did the class nerd seriously just forget what was happening here?

"So I can jump start it, you-" He had begun to raise his voice at him, but instead took a deep breath and held it in until he felt his heart rate slow down. Stu studied him as he closed his eyes and turned away, and a few seconds later, he looked back at him with softer, calmer eyes, and told him what he meant with a more composed tone of voice.

"I nee' you to pop the hood so tha' I can jump start the car."

"Yew can' open it from there?"

"No, I nee' you to push the button."

"Button?"

"It shoul' look like a black button with a picture of the hood of the car being lifted."

"Ai don' see nuffin lioke tha' in here." Stuart looked around where the majority of the buttons were in his car, and ignored the little hole where the button the man was talking about should have been located at.

"Let me see." He came around the side and looked in, immediately finding the little hole and smacking his face when he realized why Stuart couldn't find the button.

"See? Jus' a lil' 'ole righ' there."

"Yeah, the button is missing."

"'Ow we gonna open it?"

"Well 'ow 'ave you opened it in the past? This car does get oil changes and stuff, righ'?"

"Oil wha'?"

"You don' give your car an oil change? Ever?"

"I jus' drive it."

"You drive your car, and jus' never, ever have it checked up or given an oil change or anything?"

"Neveh eveh."

"'Ow the bloody 'ell 'ave you not blown yourself up yet?!"

"I don' know... Lucky I guess?"

"Well here, give me something to shove in here so it can act like a button." Stu turned around and started rummaging in the back of his car, which was filled with random nonsensical junk that no one in their right mind would need ever. Of course, all this crud came with the car, so it made him feel like he got a better deal on it. After all, who knows when he may need a broken kaleidescope, half of an Iron Maiden CD, a Pinkie Pie pony plush with blacked out eyes and no limbs, or an empty case for the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off?

Now that he thought about it, he felt like he had paid to become a hoarder.

"What abou' t'is?" He grabbed a broken, white jumbo sized crayon and held it out to the confused man who really got more than he bargained for when he thought he'd try and help a fellow student out.

"No, it'll break if we shove it in there." Stuart suddenly started cackling like a mad man at his reply, and after a few gasps and many confused looks, he went back to searching for something.

"T'is?" He gave him a purple stick, it looked like a broken piece to a child's toy, and after thinking about it for a moment, the man took it.

"Migh' work, it's durable." He leaned down and shoved it into the hole, wiggling it around a bit and eventually hearing a pop come from the front of the car. He walked around, a grin on his face as he opened it up, and looking inside, he wondered how the heck this car had been running up until now.

"Alrigh', jus' give me a secon' 'ere and I'll have yeh up and running in a jiffy." Stuart sat back in his seat as he watched the man silently walk over to his car and get the jumper cables out before opening up his own hood and attaching the cables to the separate vehicles. He wondered if he could strike up a conversation with him at some point, because it was a little awkward just sitting there. So, he of course did what _anyone _in his situation would do, and started accusing the man of being a cheater.

"Yew're teh guy who cheats wit' t'at lil' girl, righ'?"

"Wha'?" Stuart got out of his seat, stood up straight and leaned against the car to seem a little more chill.

"Teh girl who always sits next to yew."

"I don't cheat! How dare you accuse me of..." He did the same thing he did in the beginning when he felt himself turning red with anger. He calmed down, took some breaths, and responded in a better tone. "I 'ave never cheated on those tests, not one of them."

"Then why do yew neveh start doin' anyfink 'til she's nex' to yew?"

"If you must know, she 'elps me, yes. But I don't use 'er to cheat. I 'ave... a condition, it's a lot easier if she's there is all."

"Is it like an eye condition?"

"If you really want to know, Sir Nosy, I'm dyslexic." He looked him in the eyes, and suddenly Stuart felt really bad. He accused a dyslexic guy of cheating! How awful! Now... What exactly was dyslexia again?

"So, do yew lioke, see meh backwards?"

"You're turning out to be a very pitiful bloke, aren' you? No, I don' see everythink backwards. It's jus' not easy to read, not the way it is for you, at least. But I don't like people to know, Noel knows, and now you know, and that's it."

"Oh. So, 'ow does she 'elp yew?"

"She'll read some things for me if I'm 'aving a 'ard time. I can do my own work, I don't need to cheat. I understand everything perfectly fine. But, she's a major 'elp for me."

"Tha's nice, so she's yewr girlfrien'?" The other man's eyes went wide with surprise, but he visibly shook off his shock and responded.

"No, we aren' dating. We don't even see each other outside of class."

"Do yew wan' to date 'er?"

"Shut up!" He almost yelled, his eyes were bent in anger and you could easily see red on his well defined face. He could feel himself losing control, but then paused as he calmed down and realized he really has no reason to be so upset.

"I like 'er. Alrigh'? She's a sweetheart. But, she's got a guy, 'e's a huge jerk, but she loves 'im. I don't have a chance with her because she really doesn't give a damn about me outside of helping me out here and there. That's jus' 'er personality. She's helpful." Stuart looked off to the side, trying to think of something that he could relate to this guys situation.

"Oh. Well, I lioke a girl too. I bought 'er a guitar."

"Tha's lovely." The man said it so monotone that it was obvious he didn't truly care, but Stu ignored his tone and continued anyway.

"She plays really well. Do yew play an instrument?"

"As a matter of fact, I play a bass. But it's jus' a 'obby."

"Hey, well maybe we can start a band! Yew me and lil' luv, not sure if she'd go for it but..."

"A band? I don' 'ave time for a band and neither do yew."

"'Ow do yew know I don't 'ave time? Yew don't know wha' I do."

"I know enough to know you'd never be reliable enough to be in a band."

"Well I ain' talkin' abou' becoming the next Beatle Mania or nuffin, jus' sumfink to pass the time."

"Listen I got everything 'ere hooked up, so go ahead and get back in your car and I'll try-"

"I'm serious tho'! I kin sing! I kin sing really well!" Stuart grabbed him by the shoulders to try and raise his attention back to the band thing.

"Do you want to go home tonigh' or not?!"

"I think tomorrow is Saturday, and no one is busy on Saturdays. So yew shoul' come over and bring yewr fish, and we'll get to work."

"My what?"

"Yewr fish!"

"You mean my _bass?"_

"Yeah! Tha'!"

"Are yew jus' super bored or something?"

"Absolutely." Stuart looked down at the ground in shame,then looked back up at him. The man sighed and cocked his head to the side, thinking about it with an emotionless expression for a moment.

"Alrigh', fine. I'll do a jam session with you. But don't think I'm going to be this passive every weekend, alrigh'?"

"Yes! Now we jus' need to figure out a way to get Xia to come over an'..."

"Will you get in your flipping car already so I can jump start it?!"

"Oh, righ'." Stu jumped back into his seat and got ready to start it when the man said to, but as the other was getting ready to do the same, it ever so slowly began to drizzle.

And then it down poured.

The man facepalmed himself and sighed as he walked back over to Stu's car and opened the passengers side door before plopping himself down next to him and shutting himself in to avoid getting any more drenched.

"Wha' are yew doin'? I though' yew was gonna jump teh car?"

"Jumping a car in the rain isn't good for it, and your car needs no more damage done than it already has."

"Righ', an' yew can die too."

"You can't die, really, the battery isn' strong enough to kill you. Maybe give yeh a lit'el shock." He sighed and leaned his black sleeved arm upon the window, then proceeded to rest his head onto his palm. There was a sudden silence between the men as the rain poured down around them. The atmosphere was getting a little bit tense, at least for Stu it was, the other man seemed rather calm.

He tried thinking of something to say to him, something to ask him to keep the conversation going and prevent things from getting too awkward between them. Then he remembered, he never, _ever_ asked the mans name.

"So, uh... Wha' migh' yewr name be?" He asked repeating the same words he spoke to Xia a few days ago

"Murdoc, and you?"

"I'm Stuart. But, you can just call me Stu."

"I'd rather call you 2D boy." Murdoc chuckled as he looked at the man out of the corner of his eye, curious as to whether or not Stu was lucid enough to question it, after all, he didn't exactly prove to be the brightest star in the sky.

"Why do people keep calling me that? First Xia, an' now yew. I don' ge' it."

"Well, I don' know about 'er reasoning, but in my case, yor hands kinda look like the logo to the game company 2D Boy."

"They wha'?" Stuart quickly looked down at his hands, curious to what he meant by that. Then again, he didn't know anything about this logo they apparently resembled, so he had no clue what to look for.

"You never 'eard of World of Goo?"

"No."

"It was really popular around 2008. The company 2D Boy made it." Stuart was still confused, so he just nodded and pretended to know what Murdoc was saying to him.

Again, a vocal silence came over the car, and Stu was yet again waiting for something to start a conversation with. For a while they just sat there, the sudden quiet becoming incredibly nerve wrecking for the blue haired boy. His eyes darted around the car, searching for a good excuse to converse with his potential new friend.

He noticed the necklace that Murdoc was wearing, and decided to try and start a conversation from that.

"So... When did yew star' wearing necklaces?"

"What?" The random question seemed to awaken the man out of his deep thoughts, and he snapped his head over to Stu to try and figure out what he was talking about.

The boy pointed at his necklace, just in case Murdoc didn't actually hear him.

"My necklace? You mean when did I start wearing this?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. My father gave it to me before 'e died. I've worn it ever since."

"Was 'e a hippie?" Stu asked. Murdoc shot him a subtle glare then rolled his eyes before continuing.

"I suppose in a way, but 'e didn' like being called one and 'e didn't consider himself one. 'E just preferred everyone be peaceful with each other."

"What do yew believe?"

"What do I believe in what?"

"Everything. Wha's yewr opinion on yewr Da's life?"

"Oh, I think 'e had the right idea, but 'e didn't acknowledge tha' some people don't change. Some people don't want to be peaceable with one another. They like fighting. And as long as people like that exist, there will never be peace. I believe in Karma, to a degree. If you do good stuff, good stuff might happen to you in return. If you do bad stuff, the consequences might hit you eventually. But nothing is ever certain, which explains why a lot of really bad people are living comfortably and good people are on the streets poor as dogs. I find it unfair, but it's life. I did a lot of bad things in the past, and I only realized the consequences when I found myself behind a collection of iron bars."

"Wha's wrong with collectiong iron bars?" Stu asked with intrigue, totally captivated by his car mate at this point. Murdoc just looked at him with a face of utter disbelief in what he just said.

Originally thinking of correcting him by calling him an idiot, the man instead started laughing at Stu's remark, relating his innocence to that of a child.

"I was in jail, Stu."

"For collecting iron bars?!"

"No! I did bad stuff, forget about the iron bars, okay?"

"Oh... Di'... Di' yew, uh..." Stu got closer and looked around, as if checking to see if someone would be listening to what he said next. He then covered his mouth and whispered something completely inaudible.

"What?"

"Di' yew do bad stuff with the iron bars?" Murdoc facepalmed.

"Do you really wan' to know wha' I did?"

"Well, yes." Stu nodded, and the man sighed heavily before continuing.

"I ended up two people in the hospital, and one of them died."

"Yew killed a man?!"

"Hush up!" He stared at the surprised blue haired boy for a second before looking straight ahead and taking a deep breath. He then closed his eyes and continued in a cracked sort of voice.

"Look, I didn' mean to kill 'im. I pushed him in fron' of a car by accident and 'e got hit. He died two days later."

"Oh... What about the other guy?"

"The other one was a woman. My girlfriend at the time. I had caught her with the guy and lost my temper, and..." He stopped and looked off to the side, "Look, I barely know you, and you don't need to know this much about me. Just understand that I didn' 'ave a very good past and I plan to avoid remaking my mistakes."

"Oh. Sorry if I intruded."

"Well, now you know something almost no one knows about me. But if you tell anyone anything," Murdoc was right up in Stu's face at the point, giving him a serious look as he continued, "jus' know that I will find a way to make you wish you hadn't.." He suddenly smiled and patted his head rather roughly, leaving the man in a state of semi-terror. He leaned back into his chair and looked out the window, realizing that the sun had come out and the rain stopped up completely.

"Well well well, looks like we can finally go work on getting you back 'ome, righ'?"

"I guess so." Stu leaned back into his chair too, a look of shock over his face as he continued to think about all that Murdoc had told him. Granted he wasn't a _murderer, _but he did make a guy die, which is what murderers do, right?

He was so hung up on thought that he hadn't even realized that the other man already gotten out of the car and was now in his own, getting ready to go ahead and jump start Stu's.

"Go ahead and turn your engine on!" Stu complied and the car finally started up, a relief to the man who really just wanted to go back to bed right around now.

Murdoc came over and unhooked the jump start cables from both cars, put the hoods down and went ahead and put the cables back in his trunk. He then waved goodbye to the man he just helped, and the two headed their opposite ways.

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><p><strong>If you haven't guessed yet, I'm a big Beatles fan. So, throughout this fanfic you shall find more and more Beatles references, probably (This will also probably be due to the fact that I think Murdoc looks like a rejected Beatle.)<strong>

**Anyhow that's not important.**

**What's important is this.**

**For some reason I felt like I'd get flamed big time if I changed Murdoc this much, he's almost the complete opposite of his original personality. But, the reason for this will indeed be explained eventually, since I kinda sort of know where I'm going with this at this point, (Still no clue how it will end) but if you suddenly don't like this fanfic anymore, well... I guess just don't read it then. Or stick with it and see if it gets better (Everything gets better if you stare at it long enough!)**

**Again, I'll express this to you, I have a little fear of flames without significant reason (Like instead of critiquing my actual writing, my story is being criticized because something unpleasant happened) and the last few times this happened to me (Twice I was flamed kind of harshly for not going along with a yaoi ship that was highly liked in that fandom) it kind of made me not want to write much anymore. Granted I got over it, and I'm stronger now, but I felt like sharing that with you.**

**Well, until next time, my lovely readers, (Cookies and tea for every reviewer! If you don't want tea you get extra cookies.) **

**-The Symmetricalist**


	5. Rum Run

**Ello everyone!**

**Sorry I haven't updated in, what, two months? My absence is only halfway justified though. Half the reason as to why I haven't been writing pretty much at all (Skip if you don't want to hear me ramble, I just felt like explaining some things, I'll understand if you move on.) is because I have come down with a literal mystery disease that no doctors can figure out. It has put me out of commission for a lot of things I love to do, but thankfully the docs have found a medicine that, although it makes me sky high, has diminished at least the symptoms until my next set of testing is through and they can come one step closer to figuring out what I have.**

**The other half of my absence is due to the fact that I've been a lazy writer lately and simply haven't had enough brain power to continue this story.**

**Also since I have no Internet on my computer, this is being done on my phone.**

**But after getting the news that I'm done with my GED classes and am now on the next step in optaining my GED, I figure it's about darn time I continue this thing!**

**So enjoy chapter 5!**

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><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

**Rum Run**

"Yew mean to tell me tha' you really 'ave no beer in this house at all?" Murdoc peeked his head into Stuart's fridge, searching for some sort of alcoholic beverage, be it beer or rum. Stu just shrugged his shoulders as he set up his keyboard in the living room and ignored the tiny internal crisis that his mate was going through at the moment.

"Nope. Can't do it." The raven haired man spoke monotonously as he closed the fridge door and shook his head.

"Can' do wha'?"

"I can't play with yew if I don' 'ave at least a glass of rum in me."

"Why no'?"

"Usually I'm fine but I 'ave too much on my min' today. I can't do it."

"Oh, so you're an alcoholic?"

"No I jus' don't want to be able to think."

"So yew wan' to ge' drunk?"

"Yes, actually. Sounds lovely righ' abou' now. Come on, le's go grab some beer and some good rum, I'll buy." Murdoc was already heading towards the door, his car keys in hand as Stuart tried to understand why he wanted alcohol so badly.

"Wai'! Yew jus' wanna leave? I though' we were gonna jam?"

"I alrea'y tol' yew I can' today if I don't have some good rum, now are yeh comin' or am I raiding the liquor shop on my own?" He shot Stu a daring glare, which the blue haired man took into consideration as he made a decision.

"Alrigh', I'll come."

"Excellen'. I'll drive." The two men headed out the door and got into the little black Volkswagen, and afterwards quickly went on their way to the closest liquor shop.

It was a quiet car ride for the most part. There was no laughing or blasting of music or any signs of a good time, even though these things are exactly what you'd expect of two men who were on a mission for finding alcohol.

Stuart figured that at least turning up the tunes would make things less awkward between the two of them, so he took one look at the radio, and realized there was not one. There was simply a gaping hole with a few wires hanging out, and a "Black Ice" air freshener hanging from one of them.

It somewhat explained why there was no music playing.

"Wot 'appened 'ere?" Stuart pointed to the missing radio, confused, as he didn't realize you could just take one out without heavily damaging anything.

"It got stolen a few months back. I didn' 'ave the money to get it replaced so it stayed that way." Murdoc replied, not even bothering to look over at the hole where the radio was, as everyone who has been in his car over the past months has asked the same exact question.

"Don' you wanna fin' ou' who di' et?"

"No. I figure if they were truly desperate enough to steal a crappy radio, then they must 'ave really needed the money. And if they weren' desperate and just wanted to be a-holes, then karma is gonna bite them where it hurts. Maybe."

Stuart slunk back into his seat and looked down at his phone. He did have a few songs on it that he could play in replacement of turning on the radio, and his phone did get pretty loud, loud enough to be heard by the entire car, but whether or not Murdoc would appreciate that, well, he figured maybe.

But instead of outright asking if he could play music, just to erase any doubt that maybe the driver of the vehicle would not enjoy his musical selection and may end up throwing him out of the moving car, Stuart simply hit the play button and allowed the phone to pick a song at random to start blasting. The song it decided to blast was called "PonPonPon", which is a very annoying song if you're just someone who doesn't understand.

"Wot is tha', wha' are yew playing?"

"I'm playin' a song since yew don' 'ave a radio."

"Did I say you could play a song? Wot even is this?!"

"It's PonPonPon!"

"It's annoying, turn it off."

"Why?"

"Because it's annoying! I don' even know wha' she's sayin'!"

"She's sayin' lets all run into the street and hold hands and be happy!"

"She's making me want to run into a street, alrigh', but not to be happy. Turn it off, 2D boy."

"Alrigh', how about' Numa Numa."

"Do you 'ave any songs that are in English?"

"I 'ave Numa Numa in English."

"No, like rock. Do you 'ave any good rock songs?"

"Rock? Like, stones?"

"You mean the Rolling Stones?"

"Ohhh, I ge' it now! Rock and roll is a thing, and the rolling stones are rocks that roll!"

"Do yew 'ave 'em or not?"

"No I don'."

"If yew don' 'ave any good music, don't play music at all, alrigh'?" Stuart turned off the music on his phone and sulked.

"Alrigh'."

"Good. Now look, we're here." Murdoc was about to get out of the car when he looked over and realized Stuart was frozen stiff. He couldn't even tell if the man was breathing.

"Ey, yew alrigh'?" He had his eyes locked onto something, and his cheeks were flushed and red as tomatoes. He wouldn't say a word and had no response.

Murdoc snapped his fingers in front of Stuart to try and get him out of it, but it didn't seem like it was working.

"Di' yew see a hot bird or something'? Why are yew so flustered?"

"It's her."

"Her who?"

"Look! It's lil' Xia." Stuart pointed to her, the little Japanese girl who was wearing a similar outfit to the one she wore when they first met.

"Yeah, wha' about 'er?"

"She.. She's with a guy." Stuart looked down and Murdoc looked over at the girl to see her standing next to a large, dark skinned, bald man, who was smiling and showing her something on his phone.

"And?"

"An' tha's probably 'er boyfrien'!"

And?"

"An' they are probably gonna get hitched and have lots of li'el kids together and I'll die alone!"

"Listen to me, Stuart. Are yew seriously telling me that yew imagined yourself married to a girl you've barely known a week?"

"Yes… I, I mean no! I jus' like 'er is all."

"Liking 'er is fine, but don't go setting your heart on the girl!"

"I bought 'er a guitar."

"That's nice," Murdoc said sarcastically, "now get your arse out of the car and help me pick out rum."

Stuart sighed, but hesitantly obeyed the intimidating man and shakily removed himself from the car seat and out onto the pavement of the parking lot.

He tried not to look at the girl, the girl who he indeed had developed a crush on, and instead followed Murdoc into the liquor store.

"Hey, 2D boy!" Stuart heard the girls voice, and quickly turned around to see her coming towards him.

"What? Did you not recognize me here despite the fact that you are always stalking me?"

"Wa', wot do yew mean?"

"Please, you act like you don't stare me down every day at the education center. Come here, I want you to meet a friend of mine." She grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the large man whom was leaning up against a white truck.

Stuart's gut trembled at the thought of meeting the man who was probably her boyfriend, and he quickly turned around to see if Murdoc was standing by the door waiting for him, or on his way to rescue him from this embarrassing predicament. But the man was nowhere to be seen, instead he was already inside browsing the wide selection of liquid courage and ignoring the fact that his blue haired mate was not right behind him.

The man instead sucked up his fear and stood tall in front of the noticeably bigger man, who, despite his probable ability to break Stuart's neck at any given time, seemed rather pleasant and friendly.

"2D boy, I'd like you to meet Russell, we have been friends since I was a little girl. Russell, this is the man who gave me that lovely gift."

"You're the one who gave baby girl that guitar?"

"Wot?! 'Ow do yew know it was me?!"

"I saw you leave from behind the tree right after I got it."

"Yew, yew di'? Bu' I waite' until yew alrea'y walked away teh leave."

"I turned around and saw you. I have to admit, it's creepy that you watch me, but your gesture was kind. And you do not seem too creepy yourself. You're just different."

"But I wanna remind you that if you do get creepy, ever, I'll be right here to remind you to not be."

Stuart felt relieved, but also a little nervous. But at least they had established the fact that Russell was not Xia's boyfriend. Which meant she was single. Which was a good thing to Stu.

"Hey, Noods, I'm gonna run inside and get a pack of beer before we go, you alright out here?"

"I'm good, I want to talk to Stu for a moment."

"Alright baby girl." With that he headed into the store, leaving the two behind.

"Why di' 'e call yew Noods just now?"

"That's just a shortening of his name for me. He calls me Noodle."

"Why?"

"When I was a little girl it was the only word I could say in English. He has called me that ever since."

"Tha's cute! So Noodle, di' yew like the-" Stuart was cut off by a sudden punch to the stomach.

"I did not say you could call me that. I said Russell calls me that."

"Righ'… So, where are yew two goin' today? Somewhere fun?"

"Is that really any of your business?" She glared at him for a moment, and he silently took note of the fact that her bangs were parted in a way that you could see her eyes, which is different from the way she wore them in class.

"Nah, I don' fink it is. I was jus' curious. Yew don' 'ave teh tell me."

"We are going to the park to play a gig tonight."

"A gig? Like, play music?"

"Yes, Russell and I are in a band together. It's me, him, and a few other people. We aren't big or anything, but we play at the park every Saturday night."

"Kin I come watch yew play?"

"I suppose if you would like to. After the gig we usually sit around and talk while drinking a few beers. I don't usually participate, but the rest of the group likes it."

"Well, I'll be there! And I'll bring some soda so yew don' 'ave to drink the beer with the rest of em!" Stuart glowed with a weird, yet endearing, happily stupid grin, and while it seemed so childish to the young woman in front of him, it also at the same time made her grin herself and even chuckle a bit.

"Baby girl!" Russell came running out of the store like a mad man, clutching two cases of beer under one arm and holding out a cell phone in his free hand.

"What is wrong?" Xia asked, concerned with the look on his face.

"Red says he can't make it tonight, he broke his arm after falling off a chair while doing some stupid trick on the spiral staircase! We're out a keyboard player!"

"The show can go on without a keyboard player, it's not-"

"I'll do it!" Stuart shot up his hand quicker than lightning, more than eager to help.

"You play the keyboard?" Xia asked, really hoping and praying that he wasn't simply trying to helpful and he actually knew how to play.

"Yeah! Been playin' since I was a kid!"

"But do you just play, or are you good at playing?" Russell asked as he opened the car door and plopped the packs of beer inside.

"Well me mom sai' I coul' be teh nex' Owl City if I really applie' meself." Stuart tapped his index fingers together and looked at the two of them simultaneously.

"We're gonna need more beer." Russell was about to walk off when he saw a small cart filled to the sky with different alcohols, in fact, it was so filled that you couldn't even see the person pushing it.

"2D! I tol' yeh to come in and 'elp me! Where the bloo'y 'ell were yew!?" The cart seemed to say as it rolled up to them. Stuart was fascinated with the talking cart and bent down to talk to it.

"'Ello, misteh car', 'ave yew seen meh frien' Muh'doc? 'E wen' in the liquor store and never came ou'. Di' yew eat 'im?"

"Stuart!" Murdoc came around from the side, and placed his hands on his hips.

"'Ey there yew are! I was worried tha' misteh car' ate you."

"Quit being a dumb bloke alrea'y, I though' yew were trying to avoid this li'el lady 'ere." The man turned towards Xia, who was now giggling and smiling at something.

"Wot's so funny, Xia?" Stuart turned to her, and she pointed to the cart behind them. The two men turned around and saw the cart flying down the parking lot, heading straight for a red Mustang that was parked just outside the store.

Murdoc's eyes went wide and he chased after it as fast as he humanly could, Stuart following close behind as they tried getting to the cart before it hit the car.

However, they weren't quite as quick as they had to be. The cart slammed into the beautiful paint job, leaving a dent and sending many cases of liquor flying onto the roof. As if this situation could not possibly get any worse, Stuart looked inside the car to reveal to himself that there was a man inside, who was now getting out to inspect the damage.

The man, who had a snow white mustache the size of a small rodent upon his upper lip, a pair of rectangular glasses upon his eyes, and a black business suit covering up his large figure, came around the corner of the car to see the two men, one standing there doing nothing and the other on the ground, crying over his lost liquor and the fact that he's going to be dead depending upon the mercy of the owner of the car.

"Mr. Niccals!" Murdoc's head shot up as he saw a familiar man shaking his head in front of him, rage flowing throughout his face.

"Rob! I-I can explain!"

"How many times have I told you to address me properly?" The man said angrily. Murdoc gulped, got to his feet and hoped he'd somehow, by a miracle, get out of this alive.

"Mr. Johnson, I can explain all of this."

"Start explaining then!"

"Me and my pal 'ere were buying some liquor for a charity event tonigh', bu' as I was about' to begin loading the car, the cart rolled off and…"

"That's quite enough, I have a meeting to get to at three and I don't have the time to be hearing your excuses. You'll be doing overtime with no pay until the damages have been repaired. I hope we are at an agreement?"

"Yes sir."

"Excellent. Now clean this up so I can leave. And don't leave any more damages, understood?"

"Yes, Mr. Johnson." The man immediately pulled out his cell phone and walked away from the two, chatting away at someone as he waited for the liquor to be cleaned off of the top of his car.

Murdoc gave the man a dirty glare the minute he knew he wasn't looking, and began cleaning up the bottles and broken pieces of glass that were on top of the car. Stuart helped as well, placing all of the bottles that were still fully intact back inside of the cart.

"So, 'ow do yew know 'im?"

"'E's my boss. Yew really couldn't guess that?"

"I guess I kind of di'."

"Yeah, 'e's a big arse, so I don' 'ave too much remorse for him. As far as I'm concerned, 'e deserved this li'el crack in his otherwise perfect day."

"Righ', you're inteh karma an' all tha'."

"Yep, sometime's it does me well and other times it jus' seems to fail. But nothing is perfect. After I pay this off I'll be laughing my arse off abou' it."

"You shoul' keep thinking that way. It's positive."

"It's something."

The two finished up and started on their way towards the car, this time not letting the cart out of their sight for a second. Murdoc opened up the trunk and started to load it up, box by box and bottle by bottle, while Stu more or less just stared at Russell's truck and wondered why they were inside conversing and not on their way to the park.

On closer inspection, it looked like Xia, or Noodle as he now seemed to know her, was shaking her head no and crying. She was crying again? But she had seemed so happy just a few moments ago.

"'Ey! 'Elp me out 'ere, will ya!?" Stu looked back at the man, who also seemed to notice that she was upset and having a fit about something, but tried to ignore it anyway.

_A few moments earlier._

"I got a text from my father just now."

"What's he telling you, baby girl?"

"No, he… He's saying I need to be home tonight…"

"Well, maybe I should take you back then-"

"No! I need to go!"

"Noods, we can get Paula to play guitar tonight, it's no biggie."

"No, I'm not letting him ruin my life again. This is the only thing he lets me do that isn't education centered. He ruined last week for me, he's not doing it again this week."

"Are you sure? I don't want you getting in trouble."

"I don't care if I get in trouble. I need to do this. For me."

"Alright, I'll trust you on this one. But if you really gotta go, we'll go, alright?

"Just drive, Russell."

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><p><strong>Forgive me for the obvious fact that I'm not staying consistent with accents. The autocorrect on my word processor will change things back to the way they are meant to be as I type, which is good in some cases, but bad when you purposefully want to write "teh" instead of "the". Also, any constructive criticism you may have for me, I will take it, all of it, I crave it. It lets me know you're interested enough in the story to care enough to help me make it better, as well as helping me in my writing in general.<strong>

**I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and look forward to more as I plan to be updating more frequently now that I'm less busy and feeling a lot better!**

**Til next time,**

**~TheSymmetricalist**


	6. The One They Call Sparkles

**This chapter is, in no way shape or form, meant to be taken seriously.**

**One of my best friends in the entire world demanded that I add him into a chapter. I complied, and tried to make it as interesting as possible, without getting too odd or crazy and keeping it as realistic as possible.**

**I failed miserably at two of those parts, which ones you'll soon see, but I believe I kept it real as this truly is probably how he'd act if he ever met 2D and Murdoc in real life.**

**And Sparky-san, if you're reading this and you despise how I made you act, deal with it, you know you love it ;)**

**P.S. Sparky may become a frequent visitor depending upon whether or not I survive after posting this.**

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><p>"And again from the top!" Murdoc shouted, raising his right hand to the sky while holding a half empty beer, and with the other hand sloppily holding up the neck of his bass.<p>

"From teh top of wot?" Stu asked from behind his keyboard, his long fingers gently tapping the ivory keys for no apparent reason.

"The song, yew dullard."

"Idunno, Muds. I tol' Noo- I mean, Xia, that I'd be at 'er gig tonigh'. I still 'ave to pick up some soda too." Stuart walked away from the keyboard and grabbed his phone from off the kitchen table so that he could check the time.

"A gig? Tha' li'el bird is in a band?"

"Yeah, with Russell."

"Who's Russell?" Murdoc placed down his beer on a random side table and crossed his arms.

"Her frien'."

"Yew mean the one yew freaked out abou' and nearly 'ad a panic attack over?"

"I didn' nearly 'ave a panic attack, Muds," Stu shot him a clever smirk, to which Murdoc raised an eyebrow at, "Alrigh' maybe I did. Bu' they aren' datin'."

"Well wha' time is the gig at?"

"Idunno, she just said tonight at the park. And soda."

"She said bring soda?"

"No, I sai' bring soda."

"What?" There was suddenly a knock at the door, and before anyone could even flinch at the sound, it was followed by several loud bangs, and a few ringings of the doorbell.

"Idunno if I should answer tha'." Stu said nervously as he slowly made his way behind the table and hid as the banging continued.

"Well if you won', I will, they're being an awful nuisance." Murdoc walked over to the door, his bass still secured around his shoulder, the neck of it hitting the wall several times as the slightly drunken man walked over to the door and struggled with the knob before opening it up and revealing a very tall man of a fair complexion with dirty blond hair, hazel colored almond eyes, and without even a minute having gone by, he gave the obvious impression that he was a nudist, due to the fact that he was wearing nothing but black boxer shorts covered in tiny pink mustaches, and a little tiny ribbon across his chest.

"Hi there." The man said, stretching out his hand while giving a big goofy grin. Murdoc just stared at him, either the mix of rum and alcohol was giving him vivid hallucinations, or there really was a half naked man at the door.

Then again, as far as Murdoc knew, this could be a friend of Stu's.

"'Ey 2D boy! Do you know this bloke?" He shouted over his shoulder at the younger man, who then took one look at the guy at the door, and ran upstairs as fast as he possibly could.

"Sugar lips! Wait!" The half naked man shouted as he tried running into the house. Murdoc held out his bass to try and keep him from coming any further, but the taller man simply giggled before picking up the bassist and flinging him over his shoulder, ignoring the fact that the guitar was now shoved directly under the half naked man's neck, and he proceeded to run into the house and up the stairs, totally ignoring the shouts of "Put me down this instant you weirdo!" which were emitting from the man he had forcibly picked up.

"I deman' to know what the bloo'y 'ell yew are doing!" Murdoc shouted, finally seeming to receive an answer from the man who then responded with,

"Shhhh, we're hunting Honey Buns!"

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

"Honey buns knows who I am!" The man proceeded to run down the hallway all the way to Stu's room, to which he then proceeded to bang on the door of, and then wait a few seconds before he ripped the bass off of Murdoc's shoulders and smashed the door in with it.

"Honey buns! I'm home!" The man shouted as he ran at Stu who was trying to hide behind a small teddy bear. Murdoc was still in the hallway, trying to process all of this and at the same time inspect his beloved bass guitar for any signs of obvious damage, which to his displeasure, there was a lot of it.

"Why did you leave me, honey buns? You know Mr. Bunny has missed you so much, he hasn't been the same while hugging random people at Wal-Mart since you left us!"

"Teh atmosphere was getting a li'el, eh, suffocating, yew know?" Stuart nervously chuckled as the man started gently grabbing locks of his hair and smelling them.

Murdoc then came to his senses and entered the room, rage flowing throughout his features as he quickly sobered up and held his broken bass in his shaking hands, looking like he just walked out of the depths of hell.

"Nude boy!" He shouted, which straightened the young man up into a soldier stance almost immediately.

"Hai!"

"I wan' to know your bloo'y name, I wan' to know where you bloo'y came from, and I wan' you to buy me a new bass before I break your bloo'y li'el face! Are we understood?!"

"You say bloody a lot, are you PMSing?" Murdoc swung back the remains of his guitar and was about to swing it forward onto the man with the strength of an angry bull before Stuart ran to him and held him off, trying to ensure that there would be no fatalities tonight.

"It's alrigh', Muds! This is Sparky, he's an ol' frien' uh mine."

"I WANT HIM DEAD."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Dead! Are you a sort of Neanderthal? Your last sentence wasn't very grammatically accurate." Sparky said, holding his hand out to the boiling red man in an invitation to a handshake.

"Sparky, this is Muh'doc, 'e's a li'el cranky righ' now because yew managed teh scare 'im teh death, freak 'im out, and break 'is bass all in a matter uh seconds. But 'e'll calm down eventually."

"I had a cat like that once. Mom killed it." Sparky said sadly as he looked down at his hands. Stuart came to his side and placed a hand upon his shoulder.

"I know, Sparky. It was a hard time on all of us."

"Not mom. She laughed."

"Wait, yew two know each other?" Murdoc asked, believing 100% that he was the only sane person in the room at that point.

"Yeah! We go back like four months!" Sparky put a hand on Stu's shoulder and shook him a little, the shorter man seeming oddly calm in comparison to the way he was acting less than five minutes ago.

"Then Stu, if this is normal behavior for your li'el friend, why the bloo'y 'ell di' yew run away from 'im?!"

"Because if I didn' 'ave tiddy bear to block Sparky's 'ug, well I migh' 'av died, I would'uv!" There was an awkward silence between the three men for a moment, glances being exchanged between them, goofy smiles coming and going from two of them at least three times for no apparent reason, all while Murdoc provided a stark contrast to the happy stupidity that the other two men seemed to share. It went on like this for a while, when finally Sparky spoke up.

"Hey, I came here to get my clothes back. You took them when you left a few weeks ago."

"I di'? Sorry, they must've gotten mixed up with mine."

"Well, we always were twinsies."

"Jus' check the closeh' for 'em." Stuart pointed to the closet, and the half naked man pranced over to the doors, opening them both with one swift motion and proceeding to take out half the wardrobe, not even checking to see if the clothes were his or not. He took a blue shirt, which was obviously far too small for him, and squeezed it over his head and onto his body, ignoring the fact that it was super tight and didn't even reach below his stomach.

"Awh, Stuie! You didn't have to go buy me a crop top! And in my favorite color too." The man said as he proceeded to go ahead and grab a part of pants that were also obviously too small for him.

"I didn' buy you a crop top, bu' okay." Stu said submissively, trying to smile at Murdoc to see if his sour mood had softened up a bit. The slight showing of the man's oddly shaped teeth was enough to say that the feeling hadn't subsided and he still wanted to murder everyone in the room.

"Alright, I think this is all I have. You got any plans tonight, Stu?" Sparky came over holding a big pile of clothing, almost none of it seeming to be his, and for once seemed to say something that could border on normal.

"Actually yeah, I'm gonna go see a frien' of mine play in 'er band!"

"Oh. Okay." With that he walked out of the room, away from all the turmoil he had just caused, and out of sight of the two men.

"I want. Him. Dead."

"He's not tha' ba' once yew ge' teh know 'im! We were roommate's a few months back, us and the Easter Bunny. An' 'is mum. 'E makes grea' chocolate cake!"

"'E's gonna make a good Bloo'y Mary when I'm done with him."

"Nah, 'e makes a better spiked Lemonade. Really goo' stuff. Won' remember a thing after one or two sips, bu' you'll 'ave a goo' time! Or a 'orrible, terrible time, won' make a difference after you wake up wearing nothing but a pool noodle on the side of the road with a man named Quack and a woman dressed as a banshee named Claudia."

"Wha' the 'ell are you talking abou'?

"Idunno. 'Ey, le's ge' oveh to tha park, Xia's show might' be starting. An' I still nee' the soda!"

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><p><strong>So, it's simply a fill in chapter, a little fun, a little crazy, a good excuse to grab a beer…<strong>

**Next chapter will be important and actually have a good deal to do with my plot. Without fill in chapters, I'd probably shoot myself with a potato canon. They're a good excuse to just keep typing with no disregard for what the heck you're actually typing.**

**R&R!**

**Until next time, my potatlings!**

**-The Symmetricalist**


	7. His Little Maggie May

**Hi everyone!**

**I'm back with another chapter. My muse for this story has been really intense lately and I've even begun dreaming up new scenarios while I sleep. This thing has become pretty important to me and I want to make it the best I can, so thank you to anyone who has read this far!**

**There is a scene, probably in the middle, that was inspired by Blur's version of the song Maggie May. If you have never heard their version of it, look it up either before or after you read this, it's really quite good!**

**Enjoy the story and pretty please R&R!**

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><p><strong>*~*~*Chapter 7*~*~*<strong>

***~*~*His Little Maggie May*~*~***

It was nearing 6:30 PM, and the sun was just beginning to set over the park downtown, coating every wilting tree and blade of dying golden grass with a soft, orange hue. In the middle of the park stood a small, yet convenient, circular stage, and it was surrounded by a small crowd of people, families and couples and friends who all had laid out little blankets and folding chairs and coolers beside them. Everyone was smiling, children were playing tag and adults were laughing over cold beer and soda, lovers were sweet talking, and a few were having their first dates.

It was a pleasurable, relaxing atmosphere. Everyone was just ready to sit back and have a good time before the daily grind began again.

And in walks our protagonist, who was blasting his classic tune "PonPonPon" from his cell phone in one hand, and carrying a small case of soda in the other, all while following around his still rather ticked off friend while insisting that he simply doesn't understand the message behind the happy song and that he really should sit down and watch the video.

"Really, Muds! If you'd jus' giv' t'is song a chance I know yew woul' luv eht, yew woul'!"

"If yew play tha' song one more time I'm shovin' tha' infernal device down your throat."

"Hmm, migh' no' be such a bad idea, I wouldn' lose it anymore." The two soon came to a spot right next to the stage, far enough away from all the families with little kids, who would no doubt become an unintended nuisance during the show. Murdoc turned to Stu and realized something that they totally forgot about.

"2D, di' yew bring any blankets teh sit on?"

"Nope." Stu responded. Murdoc sighed heavily and sat down on the grass, trying to not lose his cool and just enjoy the night.

"Well, we're goin' teh be leaving with some grassy asses lateh tonigh'."

"I didn' know yew spoke Spanish."

"What?"

"Look! There's people settin' up stuff on stage! They're prolly wit' Xia!" Stu pointed at the two people excitedly, anticipating the moment when Xia actually comes out and starts playing her guitar, the one thing he loved watching her do. Not that he watched her do a lot of things.

"Yeah, tha's lovely. Kin yew give me a beer?"

"I didn' bring beer. I brought soda."

"Yew brought no beer? None?"

"Nope."

"Even though I handed you two cases and said "Put these in the car"?"

"I didn' bring any."

"Wha' di' yew do with the cases then?!"

"Idunno."

"Yew don' know wha' yew di' with two bloo'y cases of beer?!"

"… I remembered teh soda…" Stu whimpered out while holding up the cans of soda with both hands, as if it would help the situation he had found himself in. Murdoc gave out an annoyed grunt and raised himself up from off the ground.

"I'm going to go find beer. If the show ends and I'm not back, I'm either dead, passed out, or making out with a hot bird." He started heading off into a randomly selected direction, intently searching to see if he could find A. a group of hot girls in bikinis, B. people with far too much beer who need help drinking it all, or C. a group of hot girls in bikinis who have far too much beer and need help drinking it all. Considering that this was a family park, and this was the middle of December, A and C seemed like they'd be farfetched ideas. But Murdoc tried anyway.

"'E mus' really luv chicken if 'e wan's teh make ou' wit' one." Stu whispered as he watched the man leave, ignoring the fact that someone was coming up behind him, slowly and quietly, and within an instant had their tiny hands reaching up to cover his eyes.

"Hand over the soda and no one gets hurt." A familiar, feminine voice said to him, which caused the startled man to giggle and smile as he realized who it was.

He turned around and went a little red at seeing how close she was to him, which she quickly noticed and took a step back to make the distance less weird. She smiled at him, looking happier than she had in all the days and hours that he had known her.

"'Ello Xia!"

"'Ello, Stalkeh Stuart." She giggled at her own imitation of his accent, and he internally sighed thinking about how adorable her laugh was.

"I brough' yew some soda." Stu held up the soda again.

"Nice. I'm going to need some if I'm to get through tonight with my eyes still open." She grabbed one of the soda's from the batch he was holding, and quickly removed it from the little plastic holder thing. For a split second, their fingers touched, and he blushed just the tiniest bit more, hoping that tonight would end with a hug from her, a nice, warm hug.

Speaking of warmth, he was cold.

Oh yeah, he didn't bring a jacket.

"So, uh, yew guys still nee' someone to play teh keyboar'?" He asked just as she had cracked open the soda and began gulping it down.

"Nah, none of the songs we are playing tonight require one."

"Goo', because I forgo' mine."

"Looks like you forgot a jacket too," She reached out one of her hands and touched his arm, noting the goosebumps on his slender limb before continuing, "aren't you cold?"

"A li'el now tha' I realize eht." Actually, he was feeling quite warm from her touch. If she just held his hand all night, he wouldn't need a jacket. Then again, he'd probably overestimate the friendly warmth and suffer from hypothermia before long, but at least he'd be pretty happy up until then.

"Well, I'll go see if my friend Danny has a jacket you can borrow. He plays bass in the band and usually doesn't wear one when it's cold out, he says the music keeps him warm." She walked off towards two people, one with dark hair who was holding a small bass guitar, and a young lady who was talking to him. Stu looked on, and admitted to himself that he felt a tiny twinge of uneasiness from her calling another boy her friend.

No, he shouldn't feel this way, he knew that. So he tried to shake it off. Tried really hard to, he did. But it wasn't leaving. He only knew her a little while, if he counted all the time he spent looking at her each day, it probably wouldn't even amount to a full 24 hours. Yet somehow, this sweet little guitarist seemed to have a tiny part of his heart glued to her, and he couldn't get it back no matter how hard he fought the feeling.

Before long he found himself staring into his reflection on a can of soda that he held in his hand, not even noticing that his little love had returned with a big leather jacket.

"Here you go! He says to just be sure you have it back by the end of the show, okay?" She placed it on his outstretched arm and grabbed the sodas he was still holding for some reason so that he'd be able to put it on.

"Fanks, luv." He mumbled, a sad look on his face as he faked a smile and put the warm jacket on over his tiny body.

"Hey, you okay?" She sensed something was wrong and placed a reassuring hand upon his shoulder. She was being a little touchy tonight, he really liked it.

"Yeah, I'm fine…" A sudden thought crossed his mind, maybe he should ask her out? It was risky, yeah, but maybe she'd say yes. He'd never know if he didn't try.

A sudden bout of bravery came over him and he decided yes, yes he would ask. He'd ask her out on a date, next Friday, maybe at a pizza joint or Taco Bell or something, he didn't know for sure yet but he'd think the details over later.

"Are you sure? You look like you're thinking really deeply on something."

"Hey woul' you like to go-"

"Hey Xia! We're about to go on!" The young man, who he guessed to be Danny, called out to her from his place next to the stage. Russell was behind him, holding a set of drum sticks.

"Oh, we'll talk later, okay 2D boy?"

"Yeah, yeah we'll tal' lateh. Good luck." He said with a melancholic tone, but also with a big goofy smile on his face, his signature expression.

"Thanks!" She took one last gulp of the soda she had grabbed earlier before placing it in a conveniently placed trashcan near the stage, then taking off towards her other band mates. Stuart sat down on the grass, waiting for the show to begin as he cracked open a soda himself and looked to the side to see Murdoc sitting next to a young woman with very short blonde hair. She had a gorgeous body, and found a way to show it off despite it being pretty cold outside. He giggled as he realized something, that was the girl who always sat next to Murdoc during class. The girl who he said helped him with the tests.

The girl he said he liked, but who would never like him back because she already had a boyfriend.

Stu sighed and turned back to the stage, a small fire starting in his chest as he saw his little love, the girl with the guitar, the girl he'd rather call Noodle than Xia for some reason, up on stage, her guitar, the guitar he gave her, in hand, proudly being played and creating a melody in tune to the other instruments. She smiled heavily and danced about as much as she could without losing rhythm, and as the song that started so intensely slowed down and allowed for a singer's turn to add to the music, she chimed into the microphone, allowing a melodious sound to flow out of her mouth.

Stu about fainted, he didn't know she could sing too! He sighed happily and closed his eyes, mentally jumping and dancing upon every word she sang. He didn't know the song, it must have been something original from their band, but he knew without a doubt that this right here was his favorite song in the entire world.

Another song came, this time with their bassist, Danny, singing. At times a duet would come along, but Xia and Danny didn't have much chemistry, so it simply didn't seem to be sung quite right. Stu thought to himself that maybe he could sing better than Danny, because lets face it, that guy can't sing.

Around five songs went by, all originals, and the man named Danny came up to his microphone and asked if the audience would like to pick a song.

"I have one!" A little girl shot her hand up, and Danny pointed to her with a smile.

"What would you like to hear us play, sweetheart?"

"I want you to play Maggie May, but you stink at singing. Find someone else to do the words, okay Mr. Guitarist?" So Stu wasn't the only person who thought that that guy sucked eggs.

"Well, I very much doubt our lovely Xia would want to sing that song. And young lady, this is a bass, not a guitar. I'm a bassist."

"You're a suckist." The little girl shouted in a sassy tone.

"Excuse me?!"

"I kin sing!" Stu raised his hand, seeing his chance to be up there with Xia.

"You can?" Danny asked, hesitant about letting some random guy up there to sing. Xia face palmed, having a feeling that he'd do this, yet finding it endearing anyway. That guy just always wanted to help.

"Well yew kin tes' ou' meh voice an' see if yew like eht before I do anyfink."

"Come up and let's hear you out then, man!" Russell shouted from the stage. The little girl looked over at the blue haired man, who was now getting up from the grass and heading over to the stage.

"He can't be any worse than you, Mr. Guitarist."

"Alright whoever owns this tiny Queen of Sass, please contain her little hateful mouth, alright?" Danny asked as Xia chuckled from the bold girl's teasing.

"Let's see what you got, 2D boy." Xia said as Stu stepped up onto the stage and twiddled his fingers nervously.

"Alrigh', well, I go' kind uh a 'igh voice, bu' I kin go somefink lioke t'is.." Stu began singing a random song, one that was sweet and showed off his pure, unique, yet simplistic voice. Xia smiled and looked at Danny, who also smiled before saying,

"You're in."

"I am? Really?" Stu smiled at those words and awaited more to follow.

"Yeah, you know the song Maggie May, right?"

"Yep."

"Well get up there to that mic and have at it!" Danny pointed to a corded microphone that was on the ground at the front of the stage. Stu turned around and walked over to it, picking it up with a shaky hand before standing straight and looking out at the people… lots and lots of people…

He felt like he was going to be sick.

But then Xia started strumming the familiar tune, and the words came to the man they all now called 2D boy, so he closed his eyes and let his inner rock star out.

"Wake up Maggie I think I got something to say to you

It's late September and I really should be back at school

I know I keep you amused

but I feel I'm being used

Oh Maggie I couldn't have tried any more

You lured me away from home

just to save you from being alone

You stole my heart and that's what really hurt."

The rest of the night went on beautifully. Stu sang a few more songs with them, "Silly Love Songs" being one of them, which Xia happily lended her voice to, which made our little protagonist shine with delight. This was the absolute best night of his life, he didn't want it to end. Ever.

The band played one more song without Stu before ending their little show and packing up their instruments for the night. Families started leaving, all of them tired but happy that they got to enjoy some nice music in a beautiful setting with people who they love and cherish.

Stu looked around for his ride, who was no where to be seen despite his little friend being on her way out. He decided that he'd search for him later, and if worst came to worst, he could just hitch a ride with Russell and Xia.

Stu was suddenly greeted with a big hug from out of nowhere, and when he looked down, he was elated to see that it was Xia.

"You did so amazingly great! Thank you!" She pulled away her warm body, her hands still wrapped around his waist. They looked into each others eyes without realizing it, both of them smiling widely.

"I, I di'?"

"Yes! Are you kidding? Danny could never sing like that. We all want you in the band permanently!"

"I… I'd luv to!" He leaned in and gave her a thankful hug back, bending down all the way and burying himself in her warmth. He swore to the heavens that he could stay like that forever and never complain.

"2D…" Xia whispered, trying to get his attention and see that he had prolonged the hug for long enough. She tapped him on the back, and he finally got the hint and shot straight up.

"Sorry, you're jus', really, really warm… I'm stupid."

"No you are not, I think it is cute that you like warm hugs," She smiled wide and giggled, "it's just that you were about to knock me over."

"Oh, well sorry abou' tha'."

"Hey, come over and hang out with us, okay? It will be fun. Or, do you have to be somewhere?"

"No no! I kin come! I'm no' sure where my ride is anyhow."

"Right, you came with Murdoc? I saw him wander off into the woods with a few women as we were packing up."

"Tha's funny, I though' 'e liked a girl alrea'y." Xia ignored his comment and grabbed onto his arm, pulling him over to a large fountain, where Danny and Russell were sitting and having a few beers while two girls and another guy joined them, one of the girls being right up on Danny's arm.

"Hey, 2D boy!" Danny called out as he saw the two coming near them. Stu smiled at the sound of his nickname and wallowed in a little bit of pride, he could tell the group had been impressed with his singing.

"'Ello everyone!"

"So has Noodle talked to you about joining our group yet?" Russell asked as he grabbed another beer from the case on the ground next to him.

"Yep! An', if you all wouldn' min', I'd luv to join yew guys!"

"Welcome to the family then, bro. Sit down, relax, have a few beers, it's part of the band initiation!" Danny joked as he waved his hand towards an empty chair and handed him an un-opened beer bottle. He sat down, Xia sitting next to him as she drank a soda over the beer the rest of them were drinking.

The seven of them chatted for at least an hour, although Xia seemed a little upset and didn't really engage in conversation that much. It didn't go unnoticed by Stuart for too long, but every time he was about to ask her what was wrong, Danny, Russell, or one of the girls would ask him a question, and he'd get trapped in another conversation. But every time he looked over at her, she seemed more and more upset, like the world was resting upon her shoulders. Her frown got bigger, her eyes got sadder, and her hair drooped more and more into her face as each minute went by.

Eventually he stopped answering each question so enthusiastically. He kept his attention on Xia and kept trying to think of something to say to her. Something besides "What's wrong," something that would show that he actually cared.

"'Ey, do yew wan' teh take a walk with meh, luv?" He asked, making it only audible to her so that no one would get the wrong idea from him.

"No thank you, 2D."

"Come on, luv, it'll be fun." He shot her a happy grin, but his face still said "I'm worried about you, talk to me."

After a moment of hesitation, she nodded her head "Yes" and got up from her seat. Stuart took off the jacket he had been lent by Danny and gave it back to the man, who was shivering but not really noticing since he was so full of energy and adrenaline from the night they had. As much as Stu regretted having to give the jacket back, he knew that if he didn't do it right at that moment, he'd totally forget to and the jacket would sit in his closet for forty years.

The two started walking, not really saying anything at all for a while. They walked in silence, despite Stu wanting to know what was wrong, and Xia actually really wanting to tell someone how she was feeling, but being too afraid to. The man knew that all she really needed was someone to be there for her and only her. She needed a shoulder that was free to be cried on if she needed it, an ear to talk into if she desired, and arms that would happily comfort and hold her until she told them to stop.

The two eventually sat down at a lake, still not saying anything to each other. It was beginning to get weird, this endless silence, but not too badly.

Eventually, Xia saw how badly Stu was shaking and decided to take off half of her jacket, which was quite large and could easily accommodate the two spaghetti thin people, and put it over his shoulder, to which he happily accepted and managed to snuggle up into, allowing the feeling to flow back into his skin as he warmed up, not only from having half a jacket, but also being so close to his little love.

"Do you want to know why I'm upset so badly, Stuart?" She finally piped up, not taking her eyes off of the water for a second. He looked down at her and noticed that she was fighting back tears and biting her lip.

"Yew don' 'ave teh tell-"

"I'm sick of my life!" She broke down into a fit of warm tears, a dam of water had exploded from behind her previously calm facial expression. She sobbed and sobbed, and Stuart felt like he could do nothing but hold her close to his chest, which she kindly accepted.

"Music is the only thing that is keeping me alive right now, keeping me from grabbing my father's pistol and ending my life with it. Not that he would even care, that big jerk!" She whisperedly shouted, wishing that she could scream at the top of her lungs all the horrible things she thought of him.

"I'm sad because I don't want to go home, Stu. I don't want to go back tonight, this is my home, right here with my friends, playing music and enjoying it. I want to be here, I don't ever want to go back to that house." She whimpered intensely through tears, her frail body shaking from the emotions she was letting pour out.

"I'm so happy when I'm here. I'm giggly and bubbly and fun and happy. I'm not ever like this at home. I never smile in my house. My father makes it impossible to."

"Wot does 'e do tha's so bad?"

"If I told you, you'd tell me I'm stupid to keep living with him and I should move out on my own. But it's not that simple. He needs me there."

"Xia-"

"No…" She turned in his arms and faced him, and placed a cold hand upon his cheek, to which he rested his own larger one on to keep hers warm. He had the strongest urge to kiss her palm, let her know that he cared so much for her despite having known her for such a short time. He wanted so badly to make her feel good and kiss away her tears. He wanted to hold her all night long and let her fall asleep in his arms. He wanted to be the person who made all the bad stuff in her life go away, the person who would make her happy. Such simple things he wanted with her, and it wrecked his head that he couldn't have them.

"Stu, call me Noodle."

"N-Noodal?" She smiled at his cute way of saying her name, and leaned in to give him another hug. He held her close, letting her know that he wouldn't let go if she didn't, and he buried his face into her sweet smelling hair. She began to cry again, allowing her reality to soak in once more. He held her tighter, cooing into her ear and whispering how sorry he was that she felt this way about her own home.

Suddenly, a phone began to ring.

"No!" The young girl jumped away from him in an instant and grabbed her phone nervously and quickly from her pocket. She looked at the name that popped up and whimpered sadly, allowing another tear to fall before answering.

"H-Hello?" Stuart could hear a man yelling abusive words from the phone, and with each second that went by, the young girl's face lost more and more emotion. After at least a minute of his yelling, the girl finally responded to him.

"I had to come, Dad. They couldn't get any other guitar player." Her tears seemed to have disappeared right off of her face, but she in no way seemed happy or less upset. The man began yelling again, and Stuart could actually make out what he was screaming this time,

"… You spend too much time with music. You know how I feel about you playing guitar, that demonic instrument. It wastes time! Nothing good has ever come of music, it's pointless garbage!"

"… I understand, sir. I'll be home soon." She hung up the phone, and after placing it on the ground, she started to cry again.

"Why is your da' so agains' music?"

"He thinks it wastes my time." She somehow managed to say. She raised herself up from the ground and took one final swipe at her tears, then reached out a hand for him to grab onto.

"Stuart, there is something I have to tell you."

"Yes?" She looked up into his eyes and held his hand firmly.

"That day that you left the guitar in the forest… You saved my life."

"I di' wha'?"

"I was going to kill myself that night. Without music I had no reason to go on. I could have bought a new guitar, yes, but that inscription on it, my nickname, my mother wrote that into the guitar for me when she was still alive. She bought me that guitar, it was the one I first learned to play on. Not just any guitar could replace it, but your gift, even though it's not a perfect replica, it saved me, Stuart."

"I… I didn'."

"Thank you. I owe you my life, I really truly do." She gave him one more, big, tearful hug, and he held onto her for dear life, feeling a train of emotion hitting his body faster than he could breathe. Was all that really true? He saved her life? He didn't mean to, not that he regrets doing it at all, but he just wanted to hear her play again, because she seemed so happy when she played. And yet come to find out, he actually saved a life that day. Her life, more importantly.

They parted, unwillingly, but she knew she had to go, and he knew that too. She looked up at him and smiled before saying,

"Goodnight, Toochie." and leaving a little kiss upon his cheek.

"T-Toochie?"

"Yes. That is my nickname for you. Toochie."

"Oh. Goo'nigh', Xi- I mean, Noodal." He smiled and brought her hand up to his lips, and he kissed the cold, soft skin tenderly. Butterflies racked throughout his body as he took one last look at her beautiful green eyes, and watched as she disappeared into the night, running off to find her friends and head home.

Stuart had never felt quite like this before, and yet he knew this feeling like the back of his hand. He knew people who had been through it before, they described it just like this, that feeling of just knowing, of just feeling so right when you're next to that one special person.

He had had girlfriends before. He had crushes and puppy love romances and steamy make out sessions with more than one girl. It was true, he wouldn't deny it, it felt right at the time, but he regretted them after every one of them broke his heart. He loved too hard, and he unfortunately seemed to attract sluts who couldn't love less.

But this was not any of that. This was entirely separate from what he had ever experienced before. There are people who you'd love to sleep with, and there are people who you'd love to make love to. And despite popular belief, those are different things almost entirely.

And he didn't feel like he would love to sleep with her, the thought hasn't even crossed his mind. He wanted to make her feel good, make her feel wanted, make her feel happy.

He felt, for the first time in his life,

That he was truly, madly, deeply in love with that girl.

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><p><strong>So how did you like it?<strong>

**I hope it doesn't seem like I'm rushing their relationship too quickly. I have a very bad habit of doing that in my writing. I feel like I'm spacing all the emotional stuff out equally though, if I do too much, things might fizzle out and get boring.**

**That's where reviews come in handy, guys ;) I love those things. Each one gives me a new kick of motivation. And you'll rest satisfied knowing that I give every reviewer a cyber cookie, and if I could, you'd get a real cookie too :D**

**I swear to it, Google has one more year to figure out how to send freshly made cookies over the internet. Otherwise they're getting a very serious letter from yours truly.**

**I hope you all are enjoying the story so far, I'm really trying hard to make this thing good. Maybe cause a few tears, as I've understood those are a good thing while writing.**

**Prepare for more comedy, more drama, and more little loves!**

**Until Next time!**

**-The Symmetricalist, AKA, Gorillove Potato**


	8. All You Need is Love

**I feel really bad about this chapter, and I don't understand why. I feel like I could have added so much more detail, as it's mostly just a conversation, but every single time I tried to add like "and then he did this" or "He sounded so (fill in the blank) as he said that" it seemed to take away too much from what I was trying to say. So I didn't force anything and just let it flow, and although I don't hate it, I don't really like it either.**

**But I named it after one of my favorite Beatles songs, so we're good!**

**I personally rate this chapter T, because there is a little bit of talk about sex. Nothing is graphic, nothing is described, but it's mentioned. Just a warning since I'm paranoid.**

**Seeing as this story is heading in a sort of serious direction, I'm thinking of changing the rating overall to T. **

**Then again I'm not sure if anyone really cares about the ratings so long as it's either MA or under MA. I know I don't.**

**ENJOY!**

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><p><strong>3~*~*Chapter 8*~*~3<strong>

**3~All You Need is Love~3**

Stu sat there by the lake alone, half of him waiting for Murdoc to show up, the other half wishing he could just sit there and sulk and sigh for the rest of the night.

His mind seemed to be going in a circle around Noodle, first he'd start thinking about how his little love touched him. His arm, his hand, his waist, and with each memory he brought back to mind came a pulsating, feather light, amazing feeling down in the pit of his stomach that spread throughout his body and forced the edges of his lips to form a smile. His cheeks would get all red and he'd sigh contentedly, being so happy just from the thought of her.

Then he'd start thinking about what this feeling in his gut meant. Was it truly love? Had he actually allowed himself to fall for that girl? But even if it was love, there was no guarantee that she loved him back, nor would she ever. Besides, he was much older than her. Yes he had the mind of a child at times, mentally he felt like he was still a young man, a teenager even, but he was in his late thirties, meanwhile she had just barely entered her twenties, and that was just the simple reality of the situation. Of anything, she was expecting him to see her as a little sister, and she probably was beginning to see him as a big brother.

But he couldn't just erase the way he felt. Before tonight, he had a crush. After tonight, after everything she told him, after the way he held her in his arms and the way she dug her face into his neck and just cried there, he had fallen in love. That was the push it took. He was in the water now, the sea of love. He just really hoped he didn't drown, and if he did, he hoped the death of his heart wouldn't be too painful.

And after the slight sadness he experienced after thinking all of that through, he'd begin to wonder if this was even possible. Was it possible to fall in love over a few hugs and a comforting moment? He didn't know. He had never been in love before, and there unfortunately wasn't some handbook that just showed up telling him how to react and what to do so that he wouldn't screw this whole thing up.

And then he sighed and his thoughts went blank, and suddenly he went back to thinking about her touch, so he smiled sadly, and the entire circle began again.

"'Ey there, 2D boy." Stu jumped at the sound of someone's voice, and turned around to see Murdoc coming towards him, hands in his pockets and a stupid, slightly drunken smile on his face.

"'Ello, Muds. Where di' yew run off teh?"

"Heh, some nice young ladies showed me wha' really goes on at the park after the sun sets."

"I though' yew were wit' tha' girl yew liked?"

"Noel? For a while I was, yeah," Murdoc sat down next to Stuart, laying back onto the grass and resting his arms behind his head as he suddenly found himself in deep thought, "but 'er bloo'y boyfriend showed up and started glaring at me, so I wen' off and left 'em alone."

Stu looked down at the man, noting a few smudges of red lipstick all over his mouth, and a few bruises on his neck. Stuart was an idiot at times, but it didn't take a genius to know what those were from.

"Bu' I'm still a li'el confused, Muds."

"Confused about' wha'?"

"If yew lioke Noel so much, why di' yew go off wit' those two otheh girls?"

"Because, there are girls who yew wan' to spend your nigh' with, and there are girls who yew wan' to spend your life with. I jus' so happen to only attract the ones who don' stay very long."

"Well, maybe it's because they're teh type yew go afteh." Stu said rather confidently, not thinking that maybe that wasn't the best thing to say. Murdoc stared at him for a moment, thinking up a reply before he raised himself up to his level and looked at him sternly.

"I am forty eight years ol', I've 'ad one steady girlfriend ever. I don' nee' your relationship advice. Good women do no' go for dirty, used, beaten up ol' men like me. It's a fact. I'm going to die alone." There was another pause in their conversation, and neither man really did anything for a moment or two. The older one laid back down, coming to a sad realization in his own words. He was too old to think about spending his good years with a girl, because in truth, he didn't have many good years left.

"Maybe you're afrai'."

"Afraid of wha'?"

"Afrai' of fallin' in luv."

"Afraid of falling in love? That's the stupidest thing I've eveh 'eard. Love is pointless. Why buy a cow when yew can 'ave the milk for free?" He laughed at his own words, trying to ignore his real feelings on the matter.

"Bu' is eht goo' milk Muds?" Stu turned to him, even though it sounded funny, he was entirely serious. Murdoc raised himself again, this time just looking down, reflecting on those words for a minute, even though he didn't want to.

"No. It's really no'. It sucks. Bu' ehts all I 'ave, an' eht's all I'll eveh ge'."

"So yew don' wan' more? Yew don' fink yew deserve a taste of the real stuff? Yew don' eveh wan' to look down at a girl and jus' fink about' 'ow much yew luv 'er?" There was a silence, and the older man turned to the younger, his body fully facing him as an irrational anger blazed inside his heart.

"I don' know if I do, okay?! All relationships end some day, every single one of 'em, be eht from death or 'eart break. I don' wan' to fall in love and find ou' jus' 'ow much it 'urts. I don' wan' to look at a woman and know I might' break 'er heart one day!" Murdoc shouted, not quite realizing just how angry he sounded, nor why he was getting so angry. He calmed down and took a deep breath, knowing that his anger wasn't going to get him anywhere.

"I hate myself for wha' I've become. I'm responsible for a man's death, I spent years in jail, I lost the only woman who ever said she loved me… I don' even care that she admittedly cheated, I didn' trea' 'er fairly. I ruined my last chance with a woman, I'm no' going to ge' anymore. From now on it's bimbos for me." He crossed his arms over his legs and leaned his chin upon them, sighing deeply and trying his best to hold back emotion.

Stu realized that he made him really upset, so he tried thinking of something else to say to him to lead his thoughts in a different direction, while still coming to the same conclusion.

"… 'Ave, 'ave yew ever made love before?" Stuart asked nervously, yet intently wondering if this man would be one to separate "Sleeping with someone" and "Making love," or if he'd be one to classify them as the same thing.

Although Stuart was entirely serious about the question, Murdoc just laughed for a bit.

"Yes, yes I've made love. Lots of it."

"No, I mean, like…"

"You're asking if I find sex and love to be the same thing?"

"Yes, exactly."

"They are. Sex is for love, love is for sex, that's why love is stupid. It's fake. It's a game your brain creates to make sure you 'ave kids."

"Well I don' fink eht is."

"Yew keep thinking tha' way and you'll die a virgin. I might' die alone, bu' I'm no' dying a virgin."

"It's sad 'ow eht seems lioke tha's all tha' mattehs teh yew, yew make it seem lioke ehts okay to be heartless so long as you're 'aving sex. Even when yew di' eht wit' your girlfrien', eht didn' feel differen' because yew luved 'er?"

"I didn' love 'er. She loved me. When I realized tha' she woul' be the only woman to ever fall in love with me, I go' with 'er, no' wanting to be alone anymore. When she cheated on me, I felt betrayed, but no' jealous. I jus' felt like 'er love for me was fake an' I woul' end up alone anyway. I 'ave neveh been in love, an' I neveh will."

"Bu' wha' about' Noel?"

"I do not love Noel, you blubbering idiot. She's sexy as 'ell, an' one of the few people who's kind to me. I wan' 'er teh cheat with me, jus' so I can feel the satisfaction of knowing I'm the reason a girl went astray from 'er beloved. I don' wan' to be wit' 'er, I jus' wan' teh be 'er dirty li'el secret for a while. Bu' she won' do tha'. She see's me as a Da' I think, sick really. She came to me the other night, sayin' 'er boyfrien' proposed and she didn' know to say yes or no'." Murdoc lost track of his careless attitude and allowed a melancholic sigh to escape his lips as he continued, "I tol' 'er if she loved him, she shoul' go for eht. And tonigh' she tol' 'im yes."

"Muds, I fink you're lying to yourself-"

"Stu, this may seem like a lie to yew because you're lovesick as 'ell and yew 'ave this sick idea tha' everyone is stupid enough to fall in love, bu' I don' love anyone. I'm a 'eartless, coldhearted man, an'-"

"T'is righ' 'ere! Wha' does this mean teh yew?" Stu had reached out for his peace necklace and raised it right in front of Murdoc's eyes, angry that he wore this thing all the time yet seemed to have no idea what it meant.

"It's a necklace. It means nothing."

"No! Yew said yew wore eht because your da' gave eht to yew before 'e died. If it meant nothing, yew wouldn't wear eht. Yew aren' the man yew say yew are, I know you're not. Yew jus' 'ave this big, dirty, mean personality that yew wear on over your 'eart so yew kin keep it from getting 'urt. But I guarantee yew, swear me own life on eht, tha' if yew took tha' personality off an' showed everyone how yew really are, you'll be so much 'appier, and yew will no' die alone." Stu gave him a smile, all he wanted out of this conversation was to prove that everyone was capable of love, and he wanted his mate right here to see that.

"I wish tha' were true, Stuart. Bu' there isn' even a 'eart left under this dirty personality."

"T'is righ' 'ere, Muds," Stu took the peace sign and gave it a shake, "t'is is your 'eart."

Murdoc took a big, exhausting sigh and shook his head as Stu allowed the necklace to fall back flat onto his chest.

"You're so damn stubborn. Maybe, maybe yew 'ave a point. I've neveh made love. I've 'eard it's amazing, bu' yew can' go an' do it and expect it to be groundbreakingly good, it jus' 'appens, yew can' plan it ou'. An' I've been curious on 'ow true love feels, bu' I still don' fink I'm capable of eht, and even if I were, no woman woul' fall for me again. Bu' le' me ask yew a question, do yew even know wha' love is?"

"I 'ave no clue. Bu' I feel eht, Muds, I jus' feel eht. It's lioke in Benny and Joon when Joon goes in to kiss Johnny Depp and Johnny feels it's right bu' 'e holds off and blows a balloon, ehts like that. Bu', even more so!"

"Eht is, 'ey? Well I hope the best for yew. Seems like yew truly care, abou' everyone and everything. Yew 'ave so much love to give, eht's so stupidly childish."

"Muds, be honest with meh. Do yew fink my li'el luv luv's me back? Do yew fink she even coul'?"

"Stu, it seems like with yew, jus' about' anything coul' 'appen."

"Tha's not a yes."

"Alrigh', alrigh'. Truth be tol', yew two 'ave chemistry. I coul' see eht up on stage tonigh'. Yew clicked. Bu' don' set yourself up for 'eartbreak, okay? She may no' wan' to date someone oveh ten years oldeh than 'er."

"Love see's no age."

"No, bu' people do. Yew wan' my advice? 'Ang out with some other girls. Date aroun' a li'el, 'ave some fun. An' if she stays on your mind the entire time, ge' really drunk. If she's still in your 'ead, maybe she's a keepeh."

"Muds, I don' wan' teh date aroun'. I wan' teh date 'er."

"Then ask her out, yew coward!"

"I wan' to. Bu' I'm afrai'."

"Listen to me, Stu. If Internet Explorer is brave enough to ask to be your default browser, you are brave enough to ask 'er out."

"I don' understand, but okay! I'll ask her out tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is Sunday."

"Well I'll ask her out Monday then!"

"Tha's the spirit. Now le's ge' yew 'ome, you're growing icicles from your nose."

* * *

><p><strong>I have this strange habit of taking a single day in a fanfic and stretching it out over several chapters, or at least to the point where it feels very weird to do a time skip or simply move on to a new day. I think I've done pretty good so far with this fanfic with regards to not doing that, but this day seems to be pretty long so far. I'm ending it soon though.<strong>

**R&R!**

**-The Symmertricalist**


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